Do you know what it is like to be lost? Mary and Joseph had lost their Son. They didn’t know where He was. They had no idea who He was with.

They would have gone round all their family and friends. They would have gone round all the people that were travelling back to Nazareth from Jerusalem.

They had lost their eldest Son and they couldn’t find Him anywhere.

You imagine the searching and the fears they had. You imagine the panic, “Where is our Son in all these great crowds?!”

They were seeking for Jesus!

You see, they couldn’t look into every little corner in Jerusalem. They couldn’t see down every street and along every rampart of the wall.

They sought Jesus … but consider how God had first searched for them.

The lamb was lost, - it had wandered away and was gone. Nothing would bring it back home again until the Shepherd went on to the hillside to find it. It’s the picture of Jesus, - the Good Shepherd, - looking for the sheep of His pasture.

God promised in the Old Testament that out of ‘the root of Jesse’ would come ‘the branch of David’. God promised that He would be born of a virgin. He promised where He would be born and how and under what circumstances.

God knew where to find Mary and Joseph. He didn’t have to send His angels to the four corners of the world to look for them … He, - the Holy Spirit - went to Nazareth!

I want to assure you that God knew exactly where to find you. God knew where you would be. You didn’t happen into the Gospel meeting by chance. You didn’t stumble upon the Gospel by luck or good fortune.

God knew exactly where you were and He came and met you at that place … the way He had set it out in His eternal plan ... and God saw you and He reached down and saved you.

The Bible uses three special words to describe this process, - each of these words is taken from the Holy Spirit’s vocabulary.

The Bible tells us we are ‘foreordained’ and ‘predestined’ to salvation … all because of the ‘foreknowledge’ of God.

To some people these are scary words but when you know what the Bible means by them they are altogether beautiful when you look and see what they really mean.

The word ‘foreknowledge’ translates a special and beautiful Greek word provginwskw

pro simply means ‘before’ and ginwskw means ‘to know’ and is used in passages such as Mt. 1: 25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS. It’s used in the same way in Gen. 4;1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. … 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch.

Here it doesn’t mean simply ‘to have some precious knowledge’ but it means, – when you have pro and ginwskw together, - the deepest expression of love from even before time began.

That is what the word means, - “to love before”. Rom. 8:29 says, For whom he did foreknow provginwskw, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

God’s Word says we love Him because He first loved us.      He met me, He came to me … He loved me with the most intimate of Divine love … and He through grace reached down and because He loved me He saved me from my sin and its punishment.

You see, that’s personally the sovereignty of God in operation as to how it applies to me.

It’s not just head-knowledge because if that is all it was it wouldn’t change anything for eternity; but it’s heart-knowledge because He has taken out the stony heart and he has replaced it with a heart of flesh.

How else do we see the Sovereignty of God in operation?

How long do you think you could keep your salvation? How long do you think you could keep going through your efforts?

Well, first of all, you wouldn’t have started if He hadn’t lifted you up. Your feet would have been so heavy with mud and dirt you couldn’t have moved them, - you were so stuck in sin you couldn’t have got free!

But God lifted you up and He washed all the dirt from your feet and He set you along the road that leads to the Celestial City of the Redeemed.

Your Heavenly Father – as it were – lifted you up onto His knees and cleaned away the dirt Himself … and you wouldn’t be on that road if it wasn’t for Him.

There are so many ‘roads’ off that one main road and each of them promises something special and attractive just ‘round the corner’ or ‘over the next hill’. Were you to take one of those roads you would certainly become lost and lose your way.

But God keeps your feet on His Way. The Psalmist said, Ps. 18:36 Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip. Yes, surely, there had been many an occasion when Ps. 73:2 my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped and that was when He stepped in and He delivered Ps. 116:8 mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.

It’s God that keeps you; He keeps your feet on the path.

Just as it was all of grace that He saved me I boast that it is all of grace that He keeps me.

I’m not a Christian today because I held on to Him; I’m a believer today because He kept holding on to me!

He knows what I am prone to; He knows my weaknesses; He knows what would make me fall.

I know that the Devil could defeat me and tempt me away but it’s God’s grace that keeps me beside my Saviour. How can I stand up to the Devil? … it is because of God’s Sovereignty. The devil has got to let go when God says “Stop!”

God reached down and saved me and He keeps my feet firmly planted on His Way.        How can I be so sure of these things? …

The most precious Book that ever came into this world is God’s Book, the Bible.

It is all His Truth, from start to finish. I daren’t take away from it. I daren’t add to it. It has everything in it that we need to know how to glorify God and enjoy Him.

I have every confidence in the Sovereignty of God in operation for out of the worst of situations He still manages to bring honour and glory to His Name.

It doesn’t matter how dark the world can cloud in round us the Light that comes form Heaven always bursts through.

In the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith we as Baptists are called to believe …

From all eternity God decreed all that should happen in time, and this He did freely and unalterably, consulting only His own wise and holy will.

This Confession of Faith of ours is so very clear and I wholeheartedly subscribe to it. A.W. Pink was convinced too, “On this point (i.e. the subject of the Sovereignty of God in operation) the teaching of Scripture is as clear as a sunbeam.”

J.N. Darby, “God’s ways are behind the scenes, but He moves all the scenes He is behind”.

Matthew Henry, “Whatever point of compass the wind is in, it is fulfilling God’s word, and turns by His counsel”.

J.C. Ryle, “The hands of the wicked cannot stir one moment before God allows them to begin, and cannot stir one moment after God commands them to stop”.

A.W. Tozer, “God’s plan will continue on God’s schedule”.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “God does not stop to consult us”.

C.H. Spurgeon again, “Whether you shall live to reach home today or not, depends absolutely upon God’s will”.

God said, Is. 46:9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 10  Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: 11  Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken.

Everything God does and everything He allows to be done is a fulfilment of His Divine will.

Do you get discouraged? Do you ever get to thinking about throwing it all in the air and taking a back seat? Does it ever get all too much for you? … Well, if it does here is the most beautiful truth you can study … that our God is Sovereign in absolutely every aspect of His operation. He never leaves you, - never whether you or in the valley or on the mountain top.

Is it our ‘right’ to question how God works and to argue with His will? Surely to do that only displays our reticence to behold His Kingliness, Ps. 104:24 O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all

Job, what did you say when the dark shades of oppression fell upon you? Job 23:10 But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

Read and study the Bible and it will tell you and show you how God loves His children and everything He does is for our good and His glory.

The Sovereignty of God in operation is a subject every true child of God knows in their hearts.

God reached down and saved me, - that was what He did of His own free and perfect will. The hardness of my heart and the opposition of my will did not and could not hinder His saving work. He reached down and saved even me!

And He keeps my feet firmly planted on the Way. It’s not me that does it, for if it was I would have been lost long ago in the by-path meadows and woods and on the hillside.

He gives me the confidence in my heart that I am His and He is mine. He won’t lose me, - He never will lose me. I’m one of His flock, He knows me by name, and He has His mark on me.

Another shepherd dare not try to steal me; I belong to the King, and His promise is sure: That we all shall be gathered at last In His kingdom above, by life’s waters so pure, When this life with its trials is past.

And how do I know all this to be true? Simple! The Bible tells me so. … and I am trusting in the altogether beautiful subject of the Sovereignty of God in operation … and it is not just head-knowledge; … more importantly, it’s heart-knowledge too!