GOD’S WAY AND OUR WAY
Psalm 18: 30-32; Psalm 119: 1-3; Romans 8: 28-30
I am very glad of what has come before us tonight about the greatness of the Lord Jesus and His Person, and about what God is. The simple thought I had as to these verses that I have read is to speak of God’s way, the perfect way: “As for God, his way is perfect”.
I do not think anybody who has any knowledge of Him would question that God and His way is perfect. Perfection is something that we can fully attribute to God because everything to do with God, who He is and how He does things is the very essence of perfection – no defect, no fault, no failure in any way. We can easily assent to this, “As for God, his way is perfect”. Perfect as to creation; He spoke the word and creation came into being. We can look around and the further we look, the grandeur of the created expanse unfolds before us, the symmetry, the perfection of balance, everything that God has done – His way is perfect. People seek to examine the creation and make what they think are discoveries but they only reveal what God is in His greatness. So we readily assent to this, that “his way is perfect”. The way He has done things is perfect, the way He has resolved the sin question is perfect, the way He has drawn near to us in the Person of the Son is perfect, the way He has presented Himself as a God who is love is perfect – “perfect love casts out fear”, 1 John 4:18. We can be in the presence of God knowing that there is perfection.
Then we read, “the word of Jehovah is tried”. Speaking reverently, nothing has been a challenge to God more than man’s failure but He has dealt with it in a perfect way. The psalmist was writing as a result of his experiences, having escaped from the hands of his enemies, having had deliverance from Saul, was praising God, “I will love thee, O Jehovah, my strength”, Ps.18:1. He was exulting in the greatness and perfection of the God whom he had come to know.
I was thinking also of verse 32, which speaks of “The God who girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect”. We have all been confronted in these days by matters that would perplex us. We have experienced isolation and trial and maybe loneliness, deprived of what we would call a normal Christian way of life. But these are all circumstances that God has allowed, and I think that through all of them, He would bring us to understand that it is He who “maketh my way perfect”. Things do not go the way I would think they should, the way I would plan, but we do know that “all things work together for good to those who love God”. That is a great thing to lay hold of. We do not see the path ahead, circumstances overtake us, there are times of sorrow and loss and we may be deprived of what we would normally enjoy, but then we know that these things “work together for good”.
I was also thinking of Psalm 119; “Blessed are the perfect in the way” – that is a continuation of David’s experience – “who walk in the law of Jehovah. Blessed are they that observe his testimonies, that seek him with the whole heart”. I think that is the way to learn, in submission to the testimonies which God has given us, that our way is to be perfect as we walk subject to the word that He has given us. It brings us into line with God and into line with all His thoughts for us. We are in a learning time, we have experience of chastening, we have the experience of sorrow, but we have the experience of times of great joy too. All bring us through a way that we shall eventually see was a perfect way, “Blessed are the perfect in the way, who walk in the law of Jehovah”. That is how to get into the realisation that God’s way is perfect and our way can be perfect too as we accept His way.
In Romans it says, “we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God”. Things happen and we might ask, Why is this happening? Why have circumstances come upon us which we might find irksome? But God allows things to test and try us in our faith and in our confidence. An example of this is in John 11, where we find Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus. Lazarus is ill, he gets worse and Martha and Mary decide that they need help and they call upon the Lord Jesus to come. Jesus gets the message and He waits two days in the place that He is in. In the meantime Lazarus dies – we might say, what a tragedy! Martha says to the Lord, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died” (v.21). God’s way is not our way; His way is perfect. Jesus says to them that Lazarus’ death is for the glory of God, not for their comfort and satisfaction but for the glory of God. Mary says, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection in the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life”. Think of that; they had to learn that here in their very presence was the One who was “the resurrection and the life”. If Jesus had come at once and healed Lazarus from his sickness, they would not have had that revelation and they would not have proved that God’s way is perfect. Death comes upon us, those we know become ill and are taken from us, and that causes sorrow and distress, but, “we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God”.
That is what I would wish to leave with each one of us here, that God’s way is perfect and as we pass along this way, we will discover that our way can be perfect too. It says, “But whom he has predestinated, these also he has called; and whom he has called, these also he has justified; but whom he has justified, these also he has glorified”. This is a great learning process which will go on until we arrive at our glorified condition, and then we will be able to look back finally and say, His way is perfect, and recognise that we have been brought into this way of perfection simply by believing, by faith, by confidence, by dependence on God.
May it be so for His name’s sake.
Archie D Melville
Three words given at a meeting for ministry, Grangemouth
7 April 2021
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