God s Sovereignty Fight or Dance? Illustration: Allow someone from audience to choose between three different fruits. Show that this person had a choice, not us. Any of the three options would still be healthy. We may have chosen differently, but it was not up to us. Definition Sovereignty: The reign and rule of God upon all of creation as the King of everything. God s will is accomplished as we submit to His rule. Providence: How God s sovereignty over creation and the world plays out. How does God work in the world? Is everything that ever happens, whether good or evil, His will? God s Sovereignty Stems from a natural inference of His qualities, character, and attributes. If God is all-knowing, all-sentient, everywhere present, all-powerful, the Creator and sustainer, THEN He must be sovereign! A matter of perspective God s and ours We have problems with God s complete and total control over the world. But we forget His attributes and the difference between God and us. Absolute power corrupts Absolutely. Francis Bacon is right, when he speaks of humans. But God knows no corruption. He is without fault, so His rule is the only rule which is always right and always perfect. Complete control for God is not a moral issue. It is for us. Power for humans brings to light their faults. Power for God brings to light His glory. How much control can God have and how much control does He exert? Providence! God can have as much control as is possible. Does God always exert the maximum amount of His sovereignty? Not always. When we deal with matters of providence, we are asking how God uses the power absolute sovereignty gives Him. Because He created the universe, He controls it all. He owns everything! Humans Why do we have to control? Our desire to control gets in the way of God s will. Abraham was promised a great nation through Sarah. He waited ten years and nothing happened. So he agreed with Sarah to take Hagar as a concubine and had Ishmael. I believe that God s asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the promised son, was God s way of seeing if Abraham would trust Him to do what He promised and if Abraham would work on His time. Jeremiah s Potter and clay (18:1-10). God showed Jeremiah through this image that He forms all of human history, from nations to kings to everything. There is nothing out of His reach. 1
Job asking why. God did not have to answer. Job, and all of us, are finite beings who may not even understand God s plans even if He laid everything out for us. It s the difference between running a big business like Microsoft and starting a small business with 5-10 employees. God s on a whole different scale and we don t understand all He does, but He makes the right and best decisions. So is God s will always done upon the earth? No. God gave as a gift free will to every human. Decisions have consequences. God had to curse the earth shortly after its conception because humanity used that gift in an evil way. There are situations which do not even touch on God s will, truly evil occurrences. These things are not caused by God s will, but by the sinful desires inside of us, from evil humanity, or from the curse. I am not saying that God s sovereignty is hindered or limited by human free will. God has sovereignly willed that we have this gift. There is a balance between the two. He honors our decision, even if it goes against His will. But we don t have nearly the amount of control God has. He has final say on everything. The Bible never allows for us to blame God for the sin that is in the world. Because God is all good, sin does not come from Him, nor is it used by Him (Jas 1:12-16). The only thing we can say along with the authors of the Bible is that God is so powerful that sin and evil situations are often turned around for the good of those who love Him (Jas 1:17, the character chains, Rom 8:28, Gen 50:20). What about troubles? How to deal scripturally: James 1:2-4 and Romans 5:3-5 Character chains. God will use troubles to make our faith stronger, our trust in Him will increase in the midst of trouble. When you re in dire straits, you get to a place you can t fix, so you need Someone who can. You need God to help you. You have to rely on Him to get you through. Troubles and trials are just the growing pains of what it takes to teach us to trust in God! What is God s will? General and Specific. God has a great plan for all of creation and the cosmos. We see this plan as God interrupts His creation throughout the Old and New Testaments. God chose Abraham soveriegnly. He could have chosen anybody, but He picked Abraham. Then God blessed Abraham. Then through Abraham, God initiated the nation of Israel, His chosen nation. Then He allowed them to become slaves in Egypt. He came to their rescue and brought them out of Egypt s tyranny. They learned what He wanted on Mount Sinai and after 40 years, inhabited the promised land He wanted to give them. The whole plot is meant to bring them near to Him, but they wanted a human king, like everyone around them. Do you see how God s will and the will of Israel plays out? God gives into their king desire, but He also warns them that it will only cause grief. He was right! 2
Eventually, their own desires put such a chasm between God s will for Israel and Israel s will for themselves that they end up in a foreign land without their own land. The land is gone and they are learning the hard way that God s will is best. Finally they start getting it. They return to their land person by person and when they finally get there they concentrate on getting the temple and the city of Jerusalem back. But they do it with righteousness. They have learned the second time they go into the land that God rules. Then 400 years pass and they have become so spiritually dry that the Messiah shows up on their doorstep and they not only ignore Him, but kill Him. And it takes a new organization to help them see what they have done. This new organization, the Church, has been part of God s plan, just as Israel is part of God s plan. And now God s goal, His will, is being realized through the organizations He has set up throughout history. People are coming to know Him in a real and powerful way, and they re accepting His Son. And on a day coming soon, Jesus will return and God s will will be finished as His people no longer count on images like the temple to realize His presence in their midst. The new heavens and new earth will finally bring God s will on earth and I will be their God, and they will be my people. God s will is the entire story of the Bible, the entire revelation of God. When God reveals Himself, He does it through human history and His will becomes realized as we move along. God s general will is coming to pass. God s specific will is being enacted through His people. Anytime you obey God, you re doing His will. Our will must line up with God s. Our will must be the same as His. God s Specific Will For Everyone and Believers 2 Pet 3:9 God wills that no person should perish into eternity without a relationship with Him. 1 Thess 4:3 God wills also that those who know His Son are set apart and become more like His Son. God s will is better than ours! What are we afraid of? God is in full control. We can t change that. But why would we want to. When God is in control, He provides at every junction an opportunity to save and rescue us from eternal condemnation! I like God being in control because He s looking out for me. Sovereignty and History Every time God steps into our world, it is for our good. His goodness is made most evident in His sovereignty and providence. The first time God interferes with the status quo, we get creation! At creation, God makes us, human beings. The next time God gets involved with human history is when Adam and Eve sin, and God provides a covering for them. Just from these first two instances, God s providential hand leads to goodness and salvation. God s hand throughout history has brought salvation, especially through the incarnation. Jesus came to 3
bring us eternal life, not to patch the gaping hole in our relationship with God but to create an everlasting relationship with Him for those who accept Jesus ministry. Now not to take pot shots, but every time we mess with our own history, we lie about the past, we fight one another through wars, we misuse everything we have been given, we hurt each other in every way possible. No wonder we re so scared of sovereignty. When we ve had kings or a bit of power, we ve used it to hurt instead of help. We re projecting our expectations of humanity upon the King of kings and Lord of Lords. But God does not use His sovereignty as we would. We also tend to blame our situations on God inadvertently. Have you ever heard someone say about the death of a loved one, It must have been God s will that your spouse has passed on. Only God knows or something to that affect? This is actually blaming God s will for evil things. It is not God s will to take people by the force of death from this life. We often blame things we don t understand or situations we can t explain in the junk drawer of God s unknowable and overall will. But this is the worst thing we could do to comfort others. All we do is make God out to be a robber who stole their loved one because He felt like it. Foreknowledge and Predestination Rom 8:29-30. Foreknowledge states that God knows beforehand every possibility. God is so sovereign that human free will doesn t phase Him. He doesn t worry when we choose the wrong option! He works on us until the end. That s love and that s what God s all about. We have seen from revelation that He s willing to die for us. God is powerful enough to know beforehand every contingency and every option that we might choose and where it would lead. But He does not force His will on us. The point of giving us free will was so that we would not be His puppets. God desires for us to freely choose to love Him. Forced love is no love at all. Forced devotion, as we found out in the crusades and with the conquistadors, doesn t work. It only drives people to hate more what they are forced into. Predestination is not a bad thing for us either. It is a good thing. Look very closely at what God predestines believers for in Romans 8:29-30. Verse 28 is speaking about believers, not unbelievers. It says that God called us to be believers according to His purpose. Remember His will is that no one perishes spiritually and that we all become sanctified or separated for His glory. Now He predestined us to a specific goal, that we be conformed to Christ s image! This predestination is awesome, not a problem. God made us with His own image in us, the Image of God. Now, as believers, he is predetermining that we will also have the image of His Son. We re predestined to be like Jesus. Then, he has also called us out so that we might be justified (legally righteous) and then glorified, which speaks of the final product at the rapture. God s set you up for good! Illustration: Parents know their children s temperaments, personalities, abilities, and desires. They could tell you before their children do something that they re going to do it, and maybe 4
even exactly how they ll do it and what they re thinking as they do it. Moms are really good at this and it messes with their children. But parents do not force their children s every decision and action. However, for their children s good, they may enforce rules to protect them. The reason that we don t have a problem with predestination is that God s will is to do this to every human being in the world! He wants to take every person, in whom His image has been marred by the Fall, and conform us to His Son s image and glorify us. God, in His sovereignty, has a plan to make you like Him and give you eternal life. In God s rule, He s working for you, not against you. Take salvation, for instance. The verses we read in Romans 8 do not say that God predestines people to be saved or to not be saved. Look at the verse closely. God calls everyone to be saved. After people accept His Son, then He predestines them to succeed, to become like Christ. Predestination happens after we make the choice to be saved. 5
How does this apply to me? When you re in a trial or tough situation and you can t see a way out, remember that God is working things out for your very best. He is going to establish and strengthen your trust in Him because you re going to have to lean on Him to see you through. And He s walking with you through the pain and anguish of your situation. You don t stand alone. The Lord of the entire universe is on your side. And He s predestined you to be victorious! Become less of a control freak. Nothing in this world is controlled by us. God s got the remote. Let Him take care of stuff. Don t become anxious or afraid. God s got your back. He loves you. Any trouble you face is for your good, not your demise. God does not tear down. He builds up. Thank God that He is sovereign! Submit to God s will for your life, that you become one of His children and learn to walk in His strength and righteousness. Submit to God s will for this world. He has a plan that He has detailed throughout His Word to us. Nothing gets by Him. When things happen in our world, know that God is well aware of them. He is not sleeping or out to lunch. He sees everything. Pray for those who are involved in cataclysmic events and disasters that we know aren t from God. These things happen in a cursed and fallen world. Sin is a very sinister menace. We still live in the midst of this world for now. But we can pray and ask for God to do His will on this earth. The whole point of the Sermon on the Mount is that God s kingdom is breaking into the world through us, His people. We are the ones who are to show the world the Kingdom (Rule) of God in us. We get to play a part in God s will for this world! We are mirrors of what it would be like for God to rule everything all the time. This will soon come to pass when Christ returns! The Lord s Prayer: Matthew 6:9-13. We need not be worried about God s sovereignty or even concerned with exactly how divine sovereignty and human free will work out in the end. If God is a good God who loves to give good gifts to His children, then sovereignty really comes down to trusting God to do all of the things He has promised. It comes down to faith, to taking Him at His word and watching Him do it! The bottom line of sovereignty is the gage of our own faith in God. Do we trust Him with our everything, with our crazy situations, with our lives, with our family, with our souls? How much do you trust Him? When you trust God implicitly, no matter what comes your way in life, you have a peace that no one can touch, one that passes understanding because when God comes through and has this kind of track record, we don t need to see ten steps ahead. We just need to take the next step He s giving us. Trust in God s sovereignty brings unmatched peace to our lives. 6