You can tell a lot about a person by their hands. You can gain great insight into a person’s self-image by their handshake. The confident person has a solid grip. The arrogant person has an overbearing handshake that seems to say, “You know, I can whip you if I want.” The shy or self-conscious person gives the limp “dead-fish handshake” in which they are saying, “You won’t like me…I just know you won’t.” And the seductive person can communicate that they are interested in much more than a casual greeting just by the way they touch your hand.

            The nervous or hyper person often reveals it by their constantly shaking hands, gnawed cuticles, or deformed fingernails. You can tell a calm and confident person by the absence of these things. Their hands are slow and steady.

            You can also gain insight into the kind of work a person does by their hands. A person who does physical labor usually has rough and calloused hands. Others do delicate work and so their hands are smooth and sensitive. You will hear it said of athletes that they have “soft hands.” This is the opposite of someone who has stone hands. You throw the ball to the one with stone hands and they will drop the ball. You throw the ball to one with soft hands and they seem to welcome the ball like they are holding a newborn baby.

            Have you ever wondered what kind of hands God has? Now we already know that God is spirit and he doesn’t literally have hands, but today I would like to use the metaphor of hands to describe the doctrine of God’s immanence. Hands symbolize direct involvement with something, and immanence is the technical term for God’s intimate involvement with his creation. The God of the Bible is no abstract deity removed from or uninterested in his creation. He is not like some dead-beat father who created his kids and leaves them to fend for themselves. Transcendence points to the other-worldliness or far-ness of God; immanence refers to the nearness or closeness of God. The Bible is the story of God’s immanent involvement with every aspect of his creation, but today I would like to highlight just three specific areas: nature, history, and our lives today.

 

God’s Hands are Immanently Involved in Nature

            Let us consider two biblical passages that highlight God’s hands intimately involved in nature. The first is Psalm 65:9-13:

You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing.

In this psalm, David paints a beautiful picture of God’s hands working in nature. God is not only in complete control of the land, but he actively cares for it like a good farmer or a master gardener. He waters and enriches the land so that is produces food for the earth’s population. He is the one who covers the meadows with flocks and mantles the valleys with grain.

            Like David, the Apostle Paul testifies to God’s intimate involvement in nature in Colossians 1:17—“For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Everything in the cosmos, everything in the spiritual world, and everything on earth is held together by him. Like the children’s song, he’s got the whole world in his hands!

            In past days, people instinctively knew that God was involved in nature; today, we are overwhelmed by an emphasis on the human manipulation of nature. These days, every tornado, hurricane, earthquake, ice storm, and drought is blamed on climate change, which is the result of humans putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We tend to overestimate our control of nature and we tend to underestimate God’s control and care.

            Charles Finney, the great nineteenth century revivalist, was a pastor in Ohio when they were enduring a severe drought that was afflicting the whole region where he served. The church had prayed for rain for months. In a quiet place, before service at his church, God told Finney that he was going to answer his prayers and cause it to rain that Sunday morning.

            When Finney walked into the church, he calmly deposited his umbrella at the family pew, ascended the pulpit, and proclaimed that it was going to rain. The people thought he was crazy. The service began with no clouds or any sign of rain. But during the service the people began hearing rolls of thunder, and later watched huge blankets of rain cover the little brick church and the whole region. The people rejoiced! Finney believed that God is immanently involved in nature and he was the only one to leave church dry that day.

            Do you believe, along with King David, the Apostle Paul, and Charles Finney, that God controls nature or do you believe that we are masters of the environment?

God’s Hands are Immanently Involved in Human History

            In addition to God’s hands being intimately involved in nature, they are also intimately involved in the affairs of human history. The Apostle Paul, while he was preaching to the Athenians in Acts 17:24-28, declared to the pagan people:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.

The Athenians were immersed in a pantheistic mythological religion whereby they believed that god is everything, but Paul introduced them to the one true God who is living, personal, and immanent. This God created the world and everything in it; he gave humans life and breath and everything they have; he determines the times and places that they should live. He is not far from the people he created; rather, he is close to every human and is immanently involved in history.

            Not only is God the inventor of human history, but he is the sustainer of it! Do you think your birth date was an accident? Do you think your birthplace was happenstance? Do you think that you were born into your family of origin by the luck of the draw (or unluck, depending on how you view your family)? Do you think that the historical events of the world or the events of your past happened by coincidence? No! God’s hands were immanently involved in orchestrating all of these things!

            What is the greatest example of God’s immanent involvement in human history? That’s right, the giving of his own son Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:3 declares:

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

            The chief act of God’s immanence was when he came near by taking on human flesh and dwelling with his people through the incarnation. God’s immanence was seen most clearly when Jesus’ hands were nailed to the cross to provide forgiveness for our sins! You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands. What do you see when you look at Jesus’ hands? Do you see God’s immanent involvement in your history?

 

God’s Hands are Immanently Involved in Human Lives Today

            Well, now that we have seen how God’s hands are active in creation and human history, let us take a look at how God’s hands are immanently involved in our lives today. As Jesus prepared his disciples for his physical departure from earth, in John 14:15-18 he promised them the presence of the Holy Spirit: “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” This promise was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon the upper room with power. The Spirit has been present and active in our world ever since!

            God’s hands are immanently involved in our lives today through the presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit guides us into all truth, he convicts us of sin, brings us new life, indwells us, leads us, teaches us, intercedes for us, equips us with gifts for ministry, and empowers us to fulfill God’s mission here on earth. He is our Advocate and Counselor and he is with us every moment of our lives, even when we don’t recognize it.

            During an interview back in 1966, evangelist Billy Graham was asked what he thought about the “God is dead” movement he replied, “It can’t be true, because I just talked with Him this morning.”

            Indeed, God is very much alive; He still speaks and his voice can be heard. He is involved in every aspect of our lives today!

 

            As I conclude, I would like to read you a short paragraph from the late British theologian John R.W. Stott. In his book Basic Christianity, he states:

Many people visualize a God who sits comfortably on a distant throne, remote, aloof, uninterested, and indifferent to the needs of mortals, until, it may be, they can badger him into taking action on their behalf. Such a view is wholly false. The Bible reveals a God who, long before it even occurs to man to turn to him, while man is still lost in darkness and sunk in sin, takes the initiative, rises from his throne, lays aside his glory, and stoops to seek until he finds him.

            Like I said, you can tell a lot about a person by their hands! God’s hands are immanently involved in nature, human history, and our lives today!