God's Sovereignty and Our Responsibility
Trusting God • Sermon • Submitted
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What is our responsibility if God is totally sovereign?
What is our responsibility if God is totally sovereign?
Example of the man with a divine fatalism and falling down the stairs. I’m glad that one’s over.
We must be careful not to fall into this trap. A student who takes a test and fails it saying It must’ve been God’s will I not pass this test. A careless driver.
SOVEREIGNTY AND PRAYER
Author’s trip and airport being closed due to weather. God knew about the conference he was going. If God knew all this, he wasn’t going to worry about it. Comes home, tells his wife, she says, “Don’t be anxious, but pray about it.” He had forgotten that he needed to pray about it, even though God was in control of it all.
do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Phil
The knowledge of God’s sovereignty is supposed to encourage us to pray.
Think about Peter and John in Acts when they were threatened by the Sanhedrin and told not to speak or teach, or even mention the name of Jesus. Their prayer was this:
And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them,
to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,
Acts 4:28-29
Acts 4:
The disciples believed in the sovereignty of God, but it encouraged them to pray. The believed everything that had occured in the past had been according to His will, no matter how bad (the crucifixion) or good (Jesus being raised from the dead). Due to their strong belief in this, they believed God had the power to move obstacles out of their way for their ministry.
Prayers assume the sovereignty of God. If He isn’t sovereign, then our prayers have no power. If He can’t change and control events, then why pray? His sovereignty is the foundation of our trust in Him, prayer is the expression of that trust.
Puritan preacher Thomas Lye in a sermon titled “How Are We to Live by Faith on Divine Providence?” said, “As prayer without faith is but a beating of the air, so trust without prayer is but a presumptuous bravado. He that promises and expect obedience to his commands. He will give, but not without our asking.”
Paul, while in prison writes to his friend Philemon
At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you.
Philemon
Notice he doesn’t say, I will be restored, but says he is hoping to be. He knew that if God willed for him to be released it would happen. But, he didn’t presume to know what God’s will was. His prayers would’ve probably been asking for his release, but when talking with his friend, he spoke of the hope to be released.
John Flavel, another preacher from Puritan times wrote a paper on
I cry out to God Most High,
to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
He says, because God is sovereign, we should pray.
God’s sovereignty doesn’t negate our responsibility to pry, but rather makes it possible for us to pray with confidence.
SOVEREIGNTY AND PRUDENCE
Just because God is sovereign doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act prudently. What does this mean?
To use all legitimate, biblical means at our disposal to avoid harm to ourselves or other and to bring about what we believe to be the right course of events.
David and the way he continually evaded Saul when he was trying to kill him. David did everything he could to keep Saul from being successful in his quest to kill him. He didn’t presume on God’s sovereignty, but acted in a way and trusted that God would bless his efforts.
Paul’s trip to Malta also demonstrates this. The ship had been involved in a very bad storm. Paul stands before them and says in
Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But we must run aground on some island.”
God told Paul they would be safe, not one life lost, but they would be shipwrecked in the process. When Paul saw some of the sailors trying to escape, he told the centurion
Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.”
Paul knew all hands were needed to get the ship where it needed to be. God had promised all who were sailing with Paul would survive. Paul acted prudently in trying to keep them all together so not one life would be lost. He didn’t confuse God’s sovereignty with his responsibility to act.
God’s sovereignty doesn’t give us a right to shirk our responsibilities. As a matter of fact, he will works through those things to fulfill His will. He works through those things He has placed at our diposal.
But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry. And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it.
Nehemiah
What was Nehemiah’s response to this threat?
And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.
He lead them to pray, and they acted prudently. Reading further, you find
From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail. And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah, who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me.
Nehemiah trusted God’s sovereignty, but he also used everything at his disposal and trusted that God would bless their efforts to not only continue to build the wall, but protect themselves as well.
Nehemiah
One of the most basic means of acting prudently is to pray, but we, in our prayer, must also pray for wisdom to understand what we are going through and use what He has given us to see us through.
An example of when Joshua forgot to pray for wisdom in a circumstance in found in
So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord.
The Gibeonites had come and made it look like they were from far away. They deceived Joshua and he agreed not to attack them. The truth of the matter was, they lived in the land God had promised them and would now be a constant thorn in their side because they promised not to attack them. If Joshua had followed what God had told him to do, God would’ve revealed the deceit of these people.
God has also given us the ability to seek and ask for godly counsel.
Without counsel plans fail,
but with many advisers they succeed.
Proverbs
The heart of man plans his way,
but the Lord establishes his steps.
But we also must remember within asking the counsel of others, that if what we have planned isn’t in His will, the plan will ultimately fail. This is the reason we must fervently pray and ask for His guidance.
PRAYER AND PRUDENCE
Both of these elements must go together. To do one without the other would be folly. When we looked at the passage in Nehemiah, we see how he lead the people of Isreal to do both.
We also see this demonstrated in
The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh had valiant men who carried shield and sword, and drew the bow, expert in war, 44,760, able to go to war. They waged war against the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab. And when they prevailed over them, the Hagrites and all who were with them were given into their hands, for they cried out to God in the battle, and he granted their urgent plea because they trusted in him.
When reading this, you see that these men were quite capable for battle. They were trained and it even says they were experts in battle. But even through all of the training, these verses point out that they didn’t trust in their own abilities, but cried out to God and didn’t trust in their abilities alone.
All of our plans, all of our efforts, and all of our prudence are of no use unless God blesses those means.
Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
There is both offense and defense in this scripture.
Offense - building
defense - guarding
This sums up everything we do in life. We should always be building and defending. However, this says that if God isn’t involved in this process that we are in, it will not prosper.
God isn’t simply blessing or helping, He is involved in the building and the defending. However, He also isn’t there to replace the builders and the watchman. While we are responsible for acting in our own efforts, we are dependent upon God to enable and prosper our efforts.
I can’t think of anyone who would be more dependent on God than a farmer.
He can prepare the soil, sow the seed, fertilize it, and do everything in his power to try to be successful in his harvest. However, he is very dependent on the forces of nature which God controls for his success. But yet, we can even take a deeper look into the abilities of the farmer to do what he does. Where did he get his skills, his ability to learn from his experience, the financial resources to buy the equipment, fertilizer, and seed? Where does his physical strength come from?
nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Acts
In every respect, we are dependent upon God.
When the Israelites were in the desert after they left Egypt, God made them dependent on Him for their very survival.
And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
deuteronomy
This was to prepare them for the time they would be in a land where they would want for nothing.
a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
Deuteronomy
Moses warned them when they got to the land promised to them, not to depend on their own abilities, but to continually trust in God what He would do for them.
Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
There are times when we are brought to our knees and recognize our dependence on God. A loved one has a serious health issue, a loss of a job, a major expense you don’t have the money to cover, all these circumstances will bring us to pray to God and seek His guidance in these areas. But we also should come to Him in the little things in life as well. The diagnosis ends up being something simple that can be taken care of with meds. We should be as dependent on Him even in those circumstances.
However, in this, we must also be diligent.
Ecclesiastes 10:18
Through sloth the roof sinks in,
and through indolence the house leaks.
The sluggard does not plow in the autumn;
he will seek at harvest and have nothing.
We are dependent on God, but we must also use the means He gives us to use for the appropriate situations.
Our duty is found in the revealed will of God in the Scriptures. Our trust must be in the sovereign will of God as He works in the ordinary circumstances of our daily loves for our good and His glory.
OUR FAILURES AND GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY
Does failure on our part to act prudently frustrate the sovereign plan of God?
No where in scripture will we ever find where God’s ultimate will for our lives will be frustrated by anything we do. In His infinite wisdom, his sovereign plans for our lives include our failures and even our sin. Once again, this goes back to the mysteries we talked about a couple weeks ago. We can’t try to think of His sovereign plan and the way it all works together on human terms.
When Mordecai talked with Queen Esther about going in front of the king and she expressed concern for her life, his response was
For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.”
Listen to what this says, if she doesn’t do it, help will come from somewhere else. God had other resources other than Esther. As it all pans out, Esther did what God needed her to do to fulfill his plans for her life and the lives of the Israelites.
Esther
Listen to what this says, if she doesn’t do it, help will come from somewhere else. God had other resources other than Esther.
We’re concluding our studies on God’s sovereignty and moving on to his wisdom and love. As we do this, we need to remember there is no conflict between His sovereignty and our responsibility to act. Both concepts are taught equally in the Bible. Let us hold equally to both, doing our duty as it is revealed to us in the Scriptures and trusting God to sovereignly work out His purpose in us and through uys.