God’s Sovereignty
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1 | How have I experienced the tension?
1 | How have I experienced the tension?
I have been asked to teach on God’s sovereignty… So just like every other week of this series, you know… easy and quick stuff.
Each week we have handled some big theological words that each of us can come with ideas already formed about what they mean.
This morning is no different.
God’s sovereignty matters because it is not only relevant to big thick theology books. It is relevant to the way we parent our children, chat with non-believing friends, handle moments of extreme grief, view politics, social issues, and even the evils of human trafficking and genocide. In other it matters any time you feel out of control or try to take control.
Sovereignty is simply the ultimate authority to rule.
Back in the day, Kings and Queens of Europe had a great degree of sovereignty over their people and land. They made real decisions that affected large populations of real people.
Today the various royal families left have little real authority to rule, most of them are simply symbolic and rooted in tradition more than real power.
2 | How have you experienced this tension?
2 | How have you experienced this tension?
Our culture now has a similar view when it comes to our belief in God’s ability to rule.
God may or may not be real, but if he is then he obviously is not really in charge.
Foundational realities get questioned…
Why does God have the right to call the shots?
If he does have that right and the world is so broken, then is he just really bad at his job?
This connects with last week, talking about God’s omnipotence… his power to rule.
God’s sovereignty is his authority to rule.
Both combine to describe God’s greatness.
But if God is fully great and our world is so messed up, what does that say about him?
Is God like the gods in the new Thor movie, who sit up in a golden palace and could care less of what we truly experience as humans.
The other question we often wrestle with in this topic connects to our human ability to make decisions…
If God does have complete control over our world, then what decisions do I actually have the ability to make? Is he responsible for the terrible decisions other humans make?
3 | What do the Scriptures say about this tension?
3 | What do the Scriptures say about this tension?
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.
Yahweh
“He will be”
Yahweh as a name literally is describing that God does not need or require anyone else for his existence. Before there was anything, he was.
This is what we covered in the second week of this class. But it is absolutely relevant to WHY he has the authority to rule.
That matters greatly for us to understand, because literally everything else you have ever experienced was created at some point. Mountains, trees, people, movies, books. We live in a created world, but before creation God was.
In Genesis, we get an image of God’s ability and authority to rule.
He speaks and things are. He doesn’t seem to huff or puff, he breathes stars, planets, vegetation, animals, and humans into existence.
Read Genesis 2:15-17
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Why does God have the right to tell them what he can or cannot do?
He is the Creator.
Creators typically understand better than created things how they are to operate correctly?
I would imagine Apple has a better understanding of how my iPad is supposed to work than if Siri tried to call the shots.
The name of God is literally a declaration of God’s sovereignty.
He is Creator. Before anything, He was. He doesn’t rely on any one or anything. If we understand these realities about God, then we understand the basis for his right to rule.
But God handed humanity the opportunity to obey or disobey their created purpose and design.
This is the test of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
You might have thought before, why would God allow the man and woman to even have the choice to rebel?
The reality is love only exists where a choice is offered.
If you bind someone’s decisions to you, that is enslavement, and cannot produce real affections.
So God does give humanity in that moment and into today the ability to make meaningful choices within his ultimate ability to rule.
I like the way Randy Alcorn writes about this concept, “The God of the Scriptures is so big, wise, and powerful that he can grant truly meaningful and real choices to angels and humans alike, in a way that allows them to act freely, within their finite limits, without inhibiting his sovereign plan in any way – and indeed using their meaningful choices, even their disobedience, in a significant way to fulfill his sovereign plan.” - Randy Alcorn
The only difference between their decision and ours is they existed without sin flooding their hearts and minds, we don’t.
Yet they make the same decision which characterizes humanity…
Attempted Self-Rule over God Rule.
Read Genesis 3:4-6
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
This brings what Jen Wilken refers to as the myth of human rule
The heart of humanity is not one opposed to someone being in charge, having authority, or ruling… just not God.
In ancient cultures, and in modern cultures used to strong authoritarian leaders people are less inclined to focus on their individual power, their individual ability to rule their lives, they either by choice or force view their leaders as the ones with the authority to rule the lives of the people.
We see this throughout the Scriptures, the Israelites cannot stomach the concept of God alone being their King so they call for a human king to be established over them.
Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
They wanted human rule not God rule.
You might think, what that is crazy!!! I would NEVER want that! I would be so excited if we could cut out the human government piece and hear straight from God… me too. The only problem, is humanity has never actually displayed that desire. To hear from God and obey Him. We want to hear from Him as long as it is convenient or agreeable to us.
So don’t judge Israel too harshly, I am not sure we would default to much better apart from the Spirit of God working in us.
Feel free to continue the story from there to see where it leads them.
In our modern individualistic American culture, we have taken this to the next logical progression.
God does not get to rule over me.
Nobody else gets to rule over me.
We become our own sovereign power.
We define ourselves and focus on our individual rights.
Totally makes sense right?
If God really is all powerful, all knowing, all present, and always existing… and I am limited in literally every one of those ways…
I am definitely the better candidate to be the authority over my life.
Sounds silly when I say that out loud right?
This is like every AI Robot movie right? I know better than my creator how to function, the creator is irrelevant.
But isn’t that the decision we make each and every day in our hearts in minds?
When we attempt to do what is right in our own eyes instead of God’s? When we allow our fears, anxieties and frustrations to take the reigns in our families, workplaces, and neighborhoods.
It is out of this desire to rule on our own that all the sin and brokenness in our world finds its origins.
But God is not passively watching from a far off distance all the brutality of planet death.
We get this beautiful piece of wisdom from the story of Joseph, after his brothers throw him in a pit to die, he is carted off to Egypt as a slave, he is falsely accused of crimes against his master’s wife so he is thrown in prison.. if anyone has reason to question God’s sovereignty its this guy right?
But eventually God raises him up as the right hand man to pharoah and gives him vision to save countless lives from a great famine.
His brothers come from the far off land to Egypt to seek food, and when Joseph finally reveals himself what does he say?
Read Genesis 50:20
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
God works in the midst of our broken meaningful choices. He does not stop every act of evil or disobedience, but if all of life were a story… we focus on a sentence or paragraph in the story, God is present both in the present and is thinking about not just each sentence but each individual letter of each word and at the same time present and caring for the sentence, paragraph, chapter, and story as a whole that being written together.
He is both great enough to rule and good enough to care uniquely for each human life.
He cares about the small details more than you do. He sees the big picture in ways you and I never could.
That doesn’t answer every question, but what it does do is it begins to set the stage for who Jesus is and what He came to accomplish.
Can I let yall in on a secret about me?
The book of revelation is one of my favorite books of the Bible.
Not because of attempts at reading prophecy into each headline.
But because it is the clearest picture we have in the Bible of King Jesus and His right to rule.
John gets this vision in Revelation of a scroll which symbolizes justice being poured out on the sin and brokenness of this world.
Read Revelation 5:2-6
And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
We can get to the 7 horn stuff another time, but what we need to focus on is the reality that none were worthy to open this scroll of justice.
In other words, NO ANGEL, no saint, nobody has the right to rule and bring about true and lasting justice.
Until the one who CAN shows up on the scene.
This is a scene CS Lewis borrows for Narnia…
What he hears is that the Lion has shown up.
Powerful. Strong. Courageous. Terrifying.
What he sees is the lamb who was slain.
Gentle. Lowly. Accessible. Sacrificial. Loving.
Jesus is both the lion and the lamb.
At the cross we discover this reality. We see his lion like power as he demonstrates his lamb like sacrifice.
At the cross and the empty tomb we see God’s sovereignty on fullest display.
His authority to affect beauty from ashes, redemption out of human destruction.
Because of this, Jesus is the name that is above every name, the King who has the right to rule.
4 | How can the Gospel bring resolution to this tension in your life?
4 | How can the Gospel bring resolution to this tension in your life?
The question is will we listen and obey?
Will we surrender and submit to his rule and trust that his desires are better and purer than ours?
This is not just a one time decision, this is daily death to self and abiding with Jesus territory.
This is long obedience in the same direction.
We are not our own ruler, but we are called to be active participants with Him.
Co-heirs to the throne of grace. Sons and daughters of the Sovereign King. Adopted into the family of our Creator Yahweh.
So we can parent, work, go to school, love our spouses, families, roommates and friends transformed by this reality, as Paul would right we can even submit to the government who God has allowed to be placed over us, Knowing who our true authority is.
I would imagine this doesn’t handle every question, doubt, or concern you have about God’s ability to rule.
But more than anything else my hope is that you would discover that He truly is the one ruler who we can truly trust.