God Graciously Chooses to Work with Us

Letting God be God as we labour together:

The Christian knows that we are co-labourers together with Christ (1 Corinthians 3:9). That is so amazing when you stop to think about it. God does not NEED to have us as his co-workers. Yet he chooses to work with us mere humans to achieve his purposes.

And we can take this notion even further: God did not need to create the universe and us. But he has freely chosen to make all things, and to have relationship with his creatures. It was not done out of need or necessity, but because he chose to do it.

The three persons of the Trinity had love, relationship and fellowship already, so there was no need to make us. But it is the nature of love to share, so God did in fact decide to create the human race to love him and have fellowship with him.

That God has chosen to create us, have fellowship with us, and work together with us is one of the grand wonders – and mysteries – of biblical truth. And it has of course led to no end of speculation and debate as to how it can be that God is in complete control and does what he chooses to do, yet he uses us and makes us accountable for our actions.

The relationship between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility will never be fully resolved this side of eternity, yet Scripture clearly affirms both truths. Plenty of questions arise here – along with plenty of theological battles! Care is needed therefore in presenting the biblical picture here.

If we go too far in any one direction we can slip into error – even heresy. If we so emphasise a Sovereign God (at the expense of all other truths) we can end up with an unbiblical fatalism or a distant and aloof God as in Islam. If we stress too much our own choices (at the expense of all other truths) we can un-god God.

So we need to be careful here. I raise all this because of a recent comment that I received. It went like this:

Thanks Bill, I do believe your prayers and intercession did help to bring an end of communist rule in Russia and eastern Europe as God won’t do anything without our co-agreement as he has given this earth to us to look after as in Genesis 1. Some people say God is in control and he does have a Will for this earth and our lives but he is a gentleman and won’t step in and take control unless we give Him approval first, is my belief.

I replied as follows:

Thanks. Yes, God certainly responds to our prayers, and somehow mysteriously achieves his purposes along with those prayers. But one cannot argue from Scripture that God’s hands are somehow tied, and he can only act if we give him permission. He would not be God if that were the case – we would be.

Again, God graciously seeks to work together with us, but he does perform his will with or without our approval. He did not wait till he had our agreement before he created the world, or came to redeem us, or when he will come again to judge this world. God even uses a whale or an ass to achieve his goals, all without them giving Him permission to do so first!

But once more, it is indeed a blessing that in a sense we can be co-workers together with Him. He does not for a moment need our help, but he kindly allows us to share in his work here on earth. And at times he can do things even despite our agreement or cooperation.

God does give us the ability to make choices for which we are responsible. If that is what we mean by human free will, then we can go along with that. The biblical, theological and philosophical understanding of just what exactly is meant by ‘free will’ is quite deep however.

I will not here enter into all that discussion and debate. But the biblical truth is this: often we find that God overrides human free will. When Saul was zapped by God on the way to Damascus it is clear that he did not first give God permission to convert him!

When Jonah was told to preach to the Ninevites, he refused to do it. God did not say, ‘Hmm, that’s a pity – I guess I will have to ask someone else if he would like to volunteer for the job.’ Instead, God applied some very strong aquatic pressure on the reluctant prophet!

While God does seek to work together with us, and while he is pleased if we do in fact cooperate with him, his purposes are not hindered by our unwillingness. He does not cease to be sovereign if and when we say ‘No’ to him.

And people – including Christians – who say no to God are everywhere. But God is still God and he still is doing what he seeks to do. As we read in Isaiah 46:10 “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” That sometimes happens with human cooperation, and sometimes without.

Hundreds of passages speak to the truth that God is working out his purposes – with or without human approval or cooperation. And we also have hundreds of texts speaking about how God and man can work together. The answer is not to pick one side and ignore or counter the other, but to fully embrace both – even if it seems to our finite minds hard to do.

The important thing here is to just stand in awe and wonder. Remember: God did not need to create the universe and you and me. And he does not need to work with us to accomplish his ends. But he has chosen to do both. That should forever make us praise and thank him.

Imagine that: he has chosen to work through me. Once a stoned-out suicidal hippy and no-hoper, he reached down and plucked me out of the miry swamp I was in and turned my life around. And now for some unknown reason he chooses to allow me to be a co-labourer together with him.

But there are no grounds for boasting on my part. A number of my teenage hippy friends did not make it back then – some died of drug overdoses, and some died of suicide. I have to keep asking myself: ‘Why me Lord?’ Indeed, that was the song Kris Kristofferson wrote back in 1972. You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZDe-Kix8co

And I speak more to how this song came about: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/05/15/a-whole-lotta-searching-going-on/

So God alone gets all the credit and all the glory. As the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:7: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” Yep, we are all just earthen vessels – cracked, broken, leaking and fragile clay pots. But God decided that this was a major way that he would achieve his ends.

Amazing. Amazing grace. Given what an important text this is, let me close by offering a quite helpful comment on it by Sam Storms. He says this:

All of us one time or another, and some more than others, fear that our weakness is a barrier to God’s purposes. We feel so very keenly the promptings of our flesh, the lack of emotional energy, our ignorance of basic truths, not to mention physical exhaustion or sickness, anxiety, and self-doubt. Then, of course, there is the absence of political and social influence, the ridicule incurred for following Christ and, for some, oppression and more severe forms of persecution and suffering.

 

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if God wants to accomplish something of greatness he needs great people to do it. He needs, and will choose, people with power, personality, charisma, money, people who are physically impressive and verbally eloquent, people whose names appear regularly in the newspapers or on the blogs, people whose lives seem to make a significant impact on our culture, people that history will remember with fondness and appreciation.

 

I’m not suggesting that such people are of no use to God or that their earthly achievements can’t be redeemed for the sake of the kingdom. But they do have one distinct disadvantage (that’s right, disadvantage, not advantage). They are far more prone to take for themselves credit that belongs to God. Weak people apologize far more than they boast. Strong people, beautiful people, people with money and status, are more inclined to draw attention to themselves and divert praise from the One to whom alone all glory is due.

 

Make no mistake about it, God is determined to secure all the glory for himself! I hope you’re OK with that, for your ultimate joy is dependent on God being God. Were God to be less than supremely glorious and praiseworthy, we are the ones who stand to lose. Our ultimate and eternal satisfaction is dependent on his being ultimately and eternally satisfying. If God should ever be less than infinitely deserving of all praise and honor and credit for whatever good is achieved, our delight in him is to that extent diminished. His capacity to enthrall us is to that extent undermined. A God who gets only partial credit is a God who is worthy of only partial praise, and such a “god” would hardly warrant our adoration or be capable of eliciting, much less sustaining, our eternal enjoyment.

 

This alone makes sense of Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 4:7…

Great words indeed about our great God and the great privilege of working together with him.

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