Sovereign God
For Our Good and His Glory
TCF Sermon
October 9, 2005
Do any of you watch a program on TV where the episodes are continuing? You know, each week is a cliffhanger of sorts, trying to get you to come back to watch next week.
Most of those kinds of shows have a brief recap that starts something like this:
“Last time, from the pulpit of TCF….” Or “previously, from the microphone of this very pulpit…” I thought we’d begin this week by having a similar recap of the last episode for those of you who slept through the sermon two weeks ago, or those who just weren’t here, for whatever reason.
Perhaps you weren’t here for weenie excuses like Gordon’s – you were on the other side of the globe…
So here goes……Last time Bill was in the pulpit at TCF, we saw Abigail entrust a precious possession to him, believing Bill was able to protect it for her. For a while he could, because he picked on a sweet young lady, who couldn’t wrestle the coin from his grasp. But when the larger, more powerful Dave Troutman attempted to take the precious coin, he overcame the weak and puny preacher, and took the coin that Abigail had entrusted to Bill to protect. Remember that?
What we learned last time was that God is omnipotent, and I’m not. We focused on God’s ability to do His will, anytime, anywhere. We learned that to truly trust God, we must truly believe that not only does He love us, not only does He have the wisdom to carry out His plans and purposes perfectly, but He also has the power, the ability, because our great God is an omnipotent God….He’s almighty, all-powerful.
We have to know and believe in all three things…the big three attributes that Rich Mullins sang about in Awesome God…His wisdom, power and love, before we can truly trust God.
I also want you to remember that we noted there would be some inevitable overlap between that message focusing on God’s omnipotence, and today’s message, on God’s sovereignty. That’s because God’s sovereignty includes His omnipotence. That is, He could not be truly and completely sovereign if He wasn’t omnipotent. But His sovereignty includes more than just raw power to do things. It includes His plans, His purposes, His will, and His eternal purpose that’s shaped by His love for us.
So the title for this morning’s message is Sovereign God. But the subtitle could be For Our Good and His Glory. That’s because, as we’ll see this morning in the Word of God, His sovereign plans and purposes, accomplished by His omnipotent power, known in advance by His omniscience, are first and foremost to exhibit His glory, with the wonderful side benefit to us of being for our good.
A couple of passages of scripture to start with this morning:
Psalm 115:3 (NIV) Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.
Eph 3:10-11 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If we think of sovereignty, we can start with a dictionary definition:
sov•er•eign, n.
1. a monarch; a king, queen, or other supreme ruler.
–adj.
2. having supreme rank, power, or authority.
3. supreme; preeminent; indisputable: a sovereign right.
4. greatest in degree; utmost or extreme.
5. being above all others in character, importance, excellence, etc.
As is the case in some of our English words, this dictionary definition is helpful, but it only scratches the surface of what it means when we recognize the scriptural teaching that God is sovereign. For example, when we think of a sovereign ruler of a nation, it cannot include the full understanding of what we mean when we say that God is sovereign.
For example, a sovereign ruler is still subject to others in many ways. Maybe no one in his own country is powerful enough to challenge him, but rulers of other nations may be. Even the most powerful, sovereign nation on earth cannot make decisions without at least the acquiescence of other nations.
Adolph Hitler probably thought he was sovereign. He certainly seemed to be in Germany – he ruled with an iron fist, and people questioned his decrees only if they were willing to risk imprisonment or death. But even Hitler was not truly and completely sovereign, because he found out that despite his massive power in his own country, despite his ability to crush those nations immediately around him, when the rest of the world awakened to the situation, and decided to gang up against Nazi Germany, Hitler’s sovereignty was over. He could no longer do as he pleased.
So God’s sovereignty is so much more than any earthly sovereignty. Let’s look at some definitions to flesh out this idea.
..by the sovereignty of God we mean that as creator of all things visible and invisible, God is the owner of all; that He, therefore, has an absolute right to rule over all. Though this sovereignty is thus universal and absolute, it is the sovereignty of wisdom, holiness and love. Henry Thiessen
So, this theologian recognizes that God’s sovereignty includes His holiness, and is influenced by His love.
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD — a theological term that refers to the unlimited power of God, who has sovereign control over the affairs of nature and history (Is. 45:9–19; Rom. 8:18–39)
In this definition we see a reference to God’s omnipotence, or unlimited power.
SOVEREIGNTY of God, his absolute right to do all things according to his own good pleasure (Daniel 4:25, 35; Romans 9:15-23; 1 Tim. 6:15; Rev. 4:11).
This definition emphasizes God’s right to do as He pleases, as in the Psalm we read a moment ago.
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD The biblical teaching that God is the source of all creation and that all things come from and depend upon God (Psalm 24:1).
This definition takes a different approach, acknowledging that God is the source and creator of all things, and the sustainer of all things.
The right of God to do as He wishes (Ps. 50:1; Is. 40:15; 1 Tim. 6:15) with His creation. This implies that there is no external influence upon Him and that He also has the ability to exercise His right according to His will.
This adds God’s purpose to the equation of His sovereignty – “as He wishes,” and also references His will, as well as his omnipotence…that is, the ability to exercise His will.
A term used to describe the fact that God is the supreme ruler of everything. God created the world and all that is in it. He sustains the entire created order in existence. He guides the affairs of human beings and nations. He providentially interacts with all that takes place. He works for the good of the world and finally will bring all things to a satisfactory conclusion. Because he is God, he has the absolute right to work his will. Sometimes sovereignty is misunderstood to mean that God forces his will on people and that we are not free to choose. That is false. God’s sovereignty includes the free choices of human beings. What makes God’s sovereignty effective is that his will it ultimately done—sometimes along with, sometimes in spite of our free choices. The Shaw Pocket Bible Handbook, Walter A. Elwell, Editor, (Harold Shaw Publ., Wheaton , IL; 1984), p. 359
This is a fuller look at what God’s sovereignty includes. It includes the idea of power, control, and providence, as well as God’s right to do whatever He wants to do. It also references another important aspect of the sovereignty of God, which only applies to His sovereignty, and not to any sort of sovereignty of men or of governments.
That’s the ability to take our free choices and still accomplish His will. This is an admittedly mysterious and amazing power God has, to take our truly free choices, and in some way we cannot in our finite minds fully understand, use those free choices to accomplish exactly what He sovereignly wills.
It may not always be what He desires. Some have dealt with this by noting that God permits, for reasons known only to Himself, people to act contrary to and in defiance of some of His permissive will. But He never permits them to act contrary to His sovereign will.
Jim Garrett has noted that there’s even a difference in the original language to make such distinctions. One word represents His absolute, sovereign will, that must be done. The other is more along the line of what God wishes or desires.
For example, God desires that all men would acknowledge Him, that all would follow the way of salvation made through Jesus. But the Scriptures say that doesn’t happen – all do not come to salvation. He desires that all would follow Him wholeheartedly. All we have to do is look around and see that’s not happening.
But what He wills, what He absolutely decides, cannot be thwarted.
The sovereignty of God means that He is free to do whatever He pleases, and what He pleases is always good, just and wise. Believer’s Bible Commentary
We could even take the illustration about protecting the precious coin that we used last time, and tweak the details a little bit, to illustrate some aspects of God’s sovereignty.
We have Abigail and her coin, which she entrusts to me. This time Dave tries to take it from me, and is unsuccessful. You might assume that means that I’m powerful enough to protect it, and in our new illustration, you’d be right. But what if I ask someone else to come and try to take it, someone like Mikayla. She comes and it seems as if she is able to take it from me. Does that mean Mikayla is more powerful than me?
But in our new illustration, what you don’t know, unless I tell you, is that I decided to let her take it from me. If I’m sovereign, and I’m powerful enough to protect it from the likes of Dave, I can do as I please, can’t I?
So, I please to let Mikayla take it from me, but not Dave. Your first question might be, why? If Abigail asked you to protect it, aren’t you letting her down by letting it go? But consider this. If I’m, for the sake of this illustration, the sovereign, omnipotent God, I also have complete wisdom, omniscience, and perfect love for Abigail.
As such, I may know some things about why it’s not in her best interest to have that precious coin. We could speculate why…
Perhaps she’ll spend it on something destructive. Perhaps her love for me will grow cold because of her riches.
But the bottom line is, whether or not I tell you why I let it go, and I may choose to never tell you…but regardless, I know best. And I know that if she keeps the precious coin, her life will go in a direction that’s not for her good or my glory.
That’s part of God’s sovereignty that’s hard to accept, and certainly hard to understand, when it comes to the difficult situations and disappointments we face in life. But it’s also an illustration of a loving heavenly Father doing what’s best for His children.
So, sovereignty is God’s right, and it includes His ability, to do as He wills. And, thanks be to God, His will is for His glory and for our good, as we noted earlier. This is really a good thing, if you think about it.
Let’s go back to Hitler for a minute. His supposed sovereignty, and his fight to gain it in the rest of the world, was clearly for his glory, as he saw it. But there’s certainly no way that most of the world could possibly see it as for their good, and it wasn’t.
But our great God’s sovereignty is encompassed by His wisdom, so He not only has the ability to do as He wills, but He, and He alone, knows best what to do in any and every circumstance, in any and every individual life, in the little things and the big things of life.
What’s more, His sovereignty isn’t just raw power, but it’s exerted with wisdom. It’s shaped and influenced by His love for us, we who are His children, created in His image, for His glory.
Imagine a truly sovereign God who did not also have perfect wisdom. Or a truly sovereign God who did not have perfect love for His created beings. He might be in charge and not know what to do with all that power. Sort of a bumbling God. Or He might not be perfect in love, and thus would do things that were unloving toward His creation.
That’s a scary thought – a sovereign God who isn’t also all-wise and all-loving. But God is the author of love, and knows what true love is better than us. And again, all three of those attributes of God are critical to our ability to trust in Him. Without any one of these holding up our faith, like a three-legged stool, our faith would crumble, our ability to trust in Him would vanish. If He’s not sovereign, if He’s not infinite in wisdom, if He’s not perfect in love, we cannot trust Him. And also, He’s not worthy of our service and our obedience.
But the good news is that He is worthy – of our trust, service and obedience. Our God is an awesome God, He reigns in heaven above, with wisdom, power and love.
Closely related – and in the explanation of some, it’s almost identical, is the providence of God.
…providence (is) that continuous activity of God whereby He makes all the events of the physical, mental, and moral phenomena work out His purposes; and that this purpose is nothing short of the original design of God in creation. To be sure, evil has entered the universe, but it is not allowed to thwart God’s original, benevolent, wise and holy purpose.
Providence, then, is the sovereign, divine oversight of all things, guiding them toward their divinely predetermined end, in a way that is consistent with their created nature, all to the glory and praise of God. This divine, sovereign and benevolent control of all things by God is the underlying premise of everything that is taught in Scripture.
PROVIDENCE God’s faithful and effective care and guidance of everything which He has made toward the end which He has chosen.
J. I. Packer definition of providence: The unceasing activity of the Creator, whereby, in overflowing bounty and goodwill, He upholds His creatures in ordered existence, guides and governs all events, circumstances and free acts of angels and men, and directs everything to its appointed goal, for His own glory.”
God’s providence, or His sovereignty, extends to all of creation. Last time, in a look at God’s omnipotence, we examined God’s sovereignty over the weather. But it doesn’t end there. It extends to individuals. To governments and rulers. To people groups, nations, all of nature, even beyond the weather to earthquakes – any natural phenomena. It’s revealed in everything from the broad sweep of history, to the most intricate details of our individual lives.
Jerry Bridges writes:
Nothing is so small or trivial as to escape the attention of God’s sovereign control. Nothing is so great as to be beyond His power to control it.
Let’s for a moment look at the one aspect of this, God’s sovereignty over history, the great things of our world, by looking at a man named Cyrus.
Cyrus was the King of Persia, an empire that at one time stretched from Asia Minor and Judah in the west, as far as the Indus valley in the east. Cyrus’s rule probably comprised the largest empire the world had yet seen at that time in history. He’s mentioned 22 times in the Bible.
That’s a lot for a man who, the prophet Isaiah recognized, did not know God. But Cyrus served God’s purposes, because God is sovereign. Let me read from Isaiah 45:4-6, as God spoke through the prophet Isaiah about Cyrus:
4For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me. 5I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, 6so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other
So, here we see a picture of God’s sovereignty. Notice, twice in this passage, God notes that Cyrus does not acknowledge Him. Yet, God chooses to use Him.
Also notice the purpose of His use of Cyrus, this ruler who didn’t follow God.
verse 6: so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting, men may know there is none besides me.
God used Cyrus to display His glory. God is able to use anything, even pagan rulers, to display His glory.
And look at verse 5: God says to Cyrus – I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me.
Do we think if God would strengthen, for the purpose of accomplishing His sovereign will in history, a pagan ruler, won’t He also strengthen us, who desire to serve Him?
This is just one of the striking examples of this in Scripture…there are many more. Why didn’t God raise up a godly leader to accomplish His purposes, in this case, the deliverance of His people from Babylonian captivity? If He’s all powerful, why didn’t He use the same kind of miracles He used to deliver His chosen people from Egypt?
I have a good answer for that. I don’t know. He does as he pleases. But in His perfect wisdom, in His infinite love, and in His sovereignty, He chose to do it this way. What takes greater power, parting the Red Sea, or taking a man and so moving that this man uses his own free will to make decisions that accomplish God’s purposes?
In verse 1 of Isaiah 45, God calls Cyrus “His anointed.” That’s the same Hebrew word used for Messiah. Life Application Notes points out:
This is the only place in the Bible where a Gentile ruler is said to be “anointed.” God is the power over all powers, and he anoints whom he chooses for his special tasks.
Proverbs 21:1 The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.
So, we see in this example, God’s sovereignty at work, accomplishing His eternal purposes, in a significant piece of history.
But God’s sovereignty extends beyond just the big picture. It includes everything about the big picture of time and history. But it also includes the most intricate details of life, which, after all, make up the big picture.
The opening question of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) asks: “What is your only comfort in life and death?” Answer: “That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ who . . . so preserves me that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must work together for my salvation.”
We find many passages in scripture, which clearly teach God’s sovereignty, on His providential care for His people, as a remedy for anxiety about our lives, about our future.
Matthew 6:25-34 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ’What shall we eat?’ or ’What shall we drink?’ or ’What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The point here is not that we’re exempt from trouble, or from suffering. The point is that God is intimately involved in our lives, and His sovereign involvement in our lives is all we need.
It’s one of those “how much more” passages we find in scripture, where it compares God’s activity in a lesser realm to reveal to us how much more he cares for us.
So, if we doubt God’s sovereignty, if we take God off the throne in the more intricate details of life, how can we explain His care for these more simple creations? Birds and flowers?
How can we explain
Matthew 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.
So seek Him first. Seek His Kingdom. Seek His righteousness. Remember that nothing happens in our lives apart from the will of our Father. He either causes or allows it to happen, and ultimately it’s for our good and His glory.
Then, we have everybody’s favorite passage in times of trouble:
Romans 8:28 (NIV): “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Now, let’s be clear here. This doesn’t mean all things are good, in and of themselves. But ultimately, it does mean that nothing can happen to us apart from God’s divine sovereignty, nothing apart from His love and His wisdom at work in our lives. In the most difficult, desperate circumstances, our sovereign God is working for our good.
The problem we often face is that though the Word clearly declares this to be true, it doesn’t tell us how God does it – why He does it the way He chooses to. So we struggle.
How can such and such a thing be good? How can Abigail losing her precious coin be good? But the Word does not present a systematic answer to these kinds of questions.
Job never learned some of the drama behind the scenes of his suffering. He was only told by God…I’m God, I’m in charge, I know what I’m doing, and you don’t. So trust me. Trust me.
What we do know is what Paul tells the Romans:
Romans 8:18-25 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Because we’re sure that God is for us, and not against us, we can learn to trust His sovereignty….one circumstance at a time.
We need an attitude adjustment, an adjustment that gives us an eternal perspective. We have tunnel vision in this life sometimes, and often we don’t consider God’s larger purposes in things, so we struggle. We need to have our perspective challenged, like Jim noted last week in his sermon on Psalm 73.
Asaph struggled with God’s sovereignty, didn’t he? He struggled with why the evil seem to get away with it.
But in verse 17 of Psalm 73, his perspective changed.
Psalm 73:17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.
In the presence of the Lord, God graciously gave the psalmist Asaph a glimpse of the big picture. It’s the big picture that God sees and we don’t. It’s the light of eternity.
This was enough for Asaph to know that God was in charge, and the things that he saw with his physical eyes weren’t all that was going on, or would go on in the future.
Jerry Bridges, in his book Trusting God, writes:
According to Jesus, God does exercise His sovereignty in very minute events – even the life and death of an almost worthless sparrow. And Jesus’ whole point is: if God so exercises His sovereignty in regard to sparrows, most certainly He will exercise it in regard to His children. While it is certainly true that God’s love for us doesn’t protect us from pain and sorrow, it is also true that all occasions of pain and sorrow are under the absolute control of God. If God controls the circumstances of the sparrow, how much more does He control the circumstances that affect us. God does not walk away and leave us to the mercy of uncontrolled random or chance events.
I read a blasphemous statement by someone who said: “Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He’d rather not sign His own name.” A lot of Christians are doing that for God today. Often unwilling to accept the fact that God is working, because they don’t understand how He is working, they have chosen to substitute the doctrine of chance for the doctrine of divine providence. Jerry Bridges
Why is it important for us to review this doctrine of our faith? Because, ultimately, it should impact our faith and the way we live our lives. How should this doctrine impact our lives as Christians? We could cite several ways it should influence us, but I want to point out, in closing, just two:
1. It should cause us to take sin seriously.
Psalm 99:1 (NIV) The LORD reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake.
The Lord reigns is another way of saying God’s in charge, He’s sovereign. But the Psalmist here says that should make the nations tremble.
Quoting the English preacher John Daniel Jones: He lived from 1865-1942, this is from his sermon The Sovereignty of God
In our absorption in the thought of God as Father, we have almost lost sight of the fact that He is the Holy Sovereign, ruling the world in righteousness. The result has been that to a large extent, we have lost the sense of religious awe, of reverence, and of godly fear.
To make our religious life deep and strong we need to recover that lost sense of awe. We need to be taught afresh the fear of the Lord. And to recover that lost sense of awe, to create a feeling of reverence, we need a fresh vision of God as the Holy Sovereign. The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble. Why (should the nations tremble)? He is holy. We have only to realize that God is the Holy Sovereign, and the awe is bound to come back. The will that rules is a holy will. The power that governs is a holy power. All who sin bring themselves into collision with the sovereign will and power of the universe.
2. it should enable us to trust God… He’s in charge, He loves us, He knows what’s best for us. We can completely trust Him with every aspect of our lives, from the hairs on our head or our lack of them, to the most important life and death issues
Again quoting JD Jones: If the realization that a Holy God is sovereign fills us sinful men and women with awe and godly fear, that same realization of God as sovereign ought to fill those of us who love goodness and long for the triumph of Christ with a happy confidence.
Psalm 97:1 The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice.
Finally:
The destinies of the world are not, for instance, at the mercy of fleets and armies. The Lord reigns. To know that God rules – to realize His sovereignty – is to be delivered from fear and despair.
"The Lord reigns." This is the ground of our confidence in the triumph of the church. The church has not, in recent years, been in a triumphant frame of mind. She has been depressed, nervous, harassed, and anxious. She has been conscious of strained resources and inadequate powers. My brethren, what we want for a recovery of our courage and confidence is the recovery of our faith in the sovereignty of God.
Our lives get broken and harassed just because we forget that it is the Lord who reigns.
So how should we respond?
Be still and know that I am God (Ps 46:10)
Why should we be still – because The Lord Reigns!!!!!
