Sabbath School Lesson for February 15-21, 2025
Introduction of Lesson 8, Free Will, Love, and Divine Providence
Memory Text: ” ‘These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’ ” John 16:33 NKJV
People understandably believe that everything that happens in the world is the result of God’s will. However, a closer look at the Biblical narrative provides us with a different assessment of why things, especially the bad, may not be what God desires for us after all.
Granting His creatures free will, so they can serve Him out of love, brought with it many outcomes that God has had to remedy. The tribulation that John speaks of in this verse was foreseen by God, but it was also provided for. A plan of salvation for humanity was immediately put in place when our first parents sinned, and through it, we can have peace, even though our lives are less than perfect on many fronts.
Many have abused their freedom of choice in whom to worship. Anything other than choosing God often leads to negative consequences, sometimes for the perpetrator of evil, and sometimes for innocent victims who suffer at the hands of the wicked. None of this was part of God’s ideal, original plan.
- Sunday: Our Sovereign God–His sovereignty has some limitations.
- Monday: Pantokrator–God has the power to do anything that is consistent with His nature.
- Tuesday: To Love God–His love gives us hope.
- Wednesday: God’s Ideal and Remedial Wills–what God prefers (His ideal will) and what He will fix, or remedy (His remedial will)
- Thursday: Christ Has Overcome the World–how God can use our suffering
Sunday: Our Sovereign God
If we believe God’s sovereignty means He controls everything, it’s only natural to ask why He doesn’t do something about the really bad things that happen to us. We can sometimes see that the bad things help prepare us for later trials–but why do the trials keep coming? It’s a valid concern and we must turn again to the Bible and the plan of salvation for clarification.
God truly desires only good for His children, but we often derail those good plans by choosing to do things that run counter to His will. Many times in the Bible we find that it was God’s purpose to bless people, but they chose a different route for their lives and they got different results, sometimes not very pleasant ones.
God often laments our turning away from Him. He feels pain with our rejection. But it doesn’t erase His sovereignty–He still sits on His throne in heaven, doing all He can to remedy our situation when we let Him.
Verses to discuss:
Psalm 81:11-14, Isaiah 30:15, 18, and Luke 13:34
- How do our choices affect our circumstances and outcomes in life?
- Why can we still say that God is in control of the universe–that He is sovereign?
Monday: Pantokrator (Almighty)
The word pantokrator literally means all-powerful, and refers to our almighty, omnipotent God. We find in Scripture that nothing is too hard for God and that with Him all things are possible (Jeremiah 32:17 and Luke 1:37). The Lord God Almighty upholds all things with His mighty power (Hebrews 1:3).
He has, at times, miraculously intervened to deliver His people. But, other times, He mysteriously does not, leaving us to wonder what to blame, and who is in charge.
The answer may be found in the fact that God must act within the confines of His character. There are some things that God cannot do, for example. He cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18) and He cannot deny Himself, or act contrary to His nature (2 Timothy 2:13). He cannot and will not force us to love Him either. All of these things limit the way God uses His power.
Verses to discuss:
Revelation 11:17, Jeremiah 32:17-20, Luke 1:37, and Matthew 19:26
- Why is it important for us to believe in God’s omnipotence?
Matthew 26:39
- Why did Jesus have to suffer and die at Calvary? Why couldn’t His Father save Him?
Revelation 1:8, 16:14, 19:15, 21:22
- Why do you think the book of Revelation uses the name God Almighty, or Almighty God, so often (more than any other book in the New Testament)?
Tuesday: To Love God
True love must be freely given; it can’t be forced. In addition, to love God means to do it with our whole heart, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:37 and Deuteronomy 6:4, 5). Anything less than a total surrender to Him may result in less than perfect outcomes for us.
Recognizing the nature of love, that it must be freely given, helps us understand why our choices may limit how God interacts with us. Wrong choices, either ours or someone else’s, result in many things that God does not wish for us.
With this love comes the knowledge that God cannot lie or break His promises to us. His promise to return to this earth and eventually make it new and perfect again gives us hope and peace–just what we need to survive our most chaotic experiences in life. Loving God has some mighty good side benefits that we must remember to praise and thank Him for, no matter how dark things currently may be.
Verses to discuss:
Matthew 22:37 and Deuteronomy 6:4, 5
- What kind of love does God expect from His creatures?
Hebrews 6:17, 18 and Titus 1:2
- What has God promised to you and why do you trust Him to keep His promises?
Wednesday: God’s Ideal and Remedial Wills
Ephesians 1:9-11 is a puzzling passage of Scripture. God’s will is a mystery and not easy to know or understand at times. Verse 11 mentions something called predestination, which many confuse with God’s foreknowledge. God knows beforehand what destination we will have, but that destination is still based on our free will, not His. We choose our destination and He knows what it will be. God merely carries out our wishes and honors the destiny we have chosen.
We should recognize that God has both an ideal and a remedial will. His ideal, original plan is certainly what God prefers–that we would all serve Him out of love. But He also has a remedial will–a plan that provides a remedy in case we change our minds about serving Him.
We don’t have to remain at odds with God. He has a way to accept all who believe and follow His stated desires–who love and trust Him with all their heart. With His foreknowledge of the future, He can “work things together for good” for all His creatures (Romans 8:28).
Verses to discuss:
Ephesians 1:9-11
- What is God’s ultimate, ideal will for us, and when will it happen?
Romans 8:29-30
- What do these verses say about predestination, and how does Jesus become part of the remedy for sin?
Thursday: Christ Has Overcome the World
We might think of God’s providence as being two-dimensional. Some things that happen to us are God’s will; but at the same time, events will occur that are the result of our poor life choices, and not what God desires for us.
John 16:33 (our memory text) contains both of these dimensions of providence. In God, we have peace. But in the world, it says, we will have tribulation. Forces of good and evil are both striving for our loyalty. We are in constant danger of being overcome by worldly pursuits and pleasures.
But we have the comfort of knowing that God’s Son, who came in human flesh, has overcome the world. An evil world that did its best to bring Him down, but didn’t succeed. Just as God used Christ’s suffering to alleviate ours, God can use our suffering to draw us closer to Him and motivate us to be more compassionate toward others.
Verses to discuss:
John 16:33
- How did Jesus overcome the world, and how are we to do it?
- What will be the result of following God’s will?
- How have you personally benefited from being loyal to God, from loving Him?
Friday: Final Thoughts
Understanding God’s divine providence, and the difference between His ideal will and His remedial will, is certainly found in the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. God planned originally to use Joseph to lead the family of his father Jacob, but his brothers had a plan of their own.
Out of jealousy and malice, his brothers tried to prevent Joseph from actively leading people anywhere by selling him to slaveholders in Egypt. They couldn’t imagine ever bowing down to their little brother, as his shared dreams foretold. See Genesis 37.
God, however, arranged the fulfillment of his dream by taking Joseph out of slavery and elevating him to a royal position in Egypt. The position of authority Joseph was finally given enabled him to save His family from starvation during a famine. As Ellen White wrote about it: “…their own course was overruled by God to bring about the very event that they designed to hinder.” ~Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 239.
Many times in the Bible we can see where God takes a miserable situation and turns it into a blessing beyond imagination, just like He did for Joseph. These stories help us trust God’s providence even more.
Next Week: The Cosmic Conflict
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