God Is Sovereign

Series Recap

We’re past the halfway point in our “God Is” series, so it’s time for a quick review of where we’ve been.

• God is Infinite: beyond our understanding and comprehension.
  • The “Omni”s:
    Omnipotent – all-powerful;
    Omniscient – all-knowing.
    Omnipresent – ever-present.

• God is Immutable: Unchanging in essence or in character or in His plans. This makes Him faithful and reliable, even as our culture twists and turns what it calls truth.
• God is Holy: He is perfect and is the moral standard for all else. He is perfectly righteous and makes no errors – ever. He is without flaw or failure.
• God is Merciful: We talked about this last week. Even though God is perfect, He compassionately forgives us for our imperfections rather than smiting us all. He withholds the consequences we deserve for our mistakes, and in His loving kindness He gave His own Son’s life so we can have the opportunity to take the righteousness of Jesus as our own.
• God is Sovereign: That’s what we’re examining this week.

God’s Sovereignty Defined

“Sovereignty” isn’t a word we use often. It’s a word that describes the power, authority and position a ruler holds. The sovereignty of rulers enables them to exercise their will over their domains.

In the United States, since we have duly elected officials with a purposefully crafted balance of powers, we don’t talk much about sovereignty other than to perhaps describe the reservations of Native Americans within our country. We recognize them as sovereign nations, meaning they have their own power and authority to rule within their boundaries.

If you’ve ever taken a class with Mr. Curnutte at the high school, you know that he has sovereign control over his classroom. He has rules for his classroom that go far beyond the school’s rules, and when you are in his classroom you follow his rules! One second late is tardy. No hats. No late assignments allowed. I hear that most of the kids understand that Mr. Curnutte’s class is different from others, and they obey the rules in his room.

With that framing from a human perspective, it’s easy to see God as sovereign since He has absolute power and the position of authority to rule over everything He created. He has power and control over our entire reality. This is the concept we will focus on today.

At this point I must acknowledge how vast this topic is and how many rabbit holes it could lead us down. It is a core aspect of what makes God God. Yet there are several implications of this doctrine which many people wish weren’t so.

For instance: When I was a teenager, my parents went through a season during which they were in a Bible study that taught them the “Word of Faith” movement – the “name it and claim it” aspect of Christianity. I remember that in that season I heard my dad push back on the sovereignty of God. Why? Because if God is in complete control, that means we don’t have as much agency to “name and claim” our own realities for ourselves.

Another complaint about the sovereignty of God (His absolute authority and control over the earth) is that it takes away our free will to choose, and people wonder if that removes our responsibility in how we live. Taken to the extreme, does that make God culpable for MY sin? (Fortunately the book of Romans deals with this issue quite clearly; but that’s a message for another day.)

These are just a few of the questions raised when we bring up the subject of God’s sovereignty. If this message raises questions for you, write them down and talk through them with your family or your Sunday school class; or give me a call and I’ll help you wrestle with this challenging topic.

Psalm 103:19 – The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.
Isaiah 46:9-10 – 9“I am God, and there is none like me. 10I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ “

Or we can look at the miracles of Jesus in which He has authority over storms, sickness, demons, and even death.

Even more telling than these descriptive passages, we see that one of the most common names for God in the Hebrew Old Testament is Adonai, which literally means Lord or Master. It can be used for human masters, but it is most commonly used as a descriptor of God.

One interesting nugget I discovered while preparing this message is the way different Bible translations use the word “sovereign” – or completely ignore it. If you have a NIV bible, the word “sovereign” will appear 297 times, while it shows up only three times in the ESV. Every time the Old Testament says “Adonai,” NIV says “sovereign Lord” and ESV simply says “Lord.” Why the big difference?

This brings me to the question, “Do we really understand the word “Lord”? Christians use it all the time, but it’s probably not a word you ever use outside of a religious sense. In fact, as I prepared this message, I realized how casual I had become with the use of this common but significant descriptor for God. So what does it mean that God is the Sovereign Lord?

Understanding what “Sovereign Lord” Really Means

Based on our previous message about the infinite nature of God, we understand that God is all-powerful and therefore is able to do anything. But power apart from relational authority is meaningless. For instance, do any of you care who the new Prime Minister of England is? No? I don’t either. None of us cares because, as powerful he might be in ruling his nation, his authority is not over you or me. He can have all the power in the world, but it doesn’t impact us as Americans.

What we see about God, however, is that He has the position of authority over every sphere of life. He isn’t just an all-powerful God who is faraway and doesn’t really make any difference in our world. He is, in fact, highly involved because His sovereign lordship extends to multiple aspects.

Lord of Creation:

This includes all matter, all living creatures, storms, droughts, the stars, laws of physics, molecular biology, and even the viruses that cause pandemics.

Science DESCRIBES each of these aspects of creation, but God is the only one who CONTROLS them. He can make rocks cry out or keep a bush on fire from burning up. He can make the sun stand still in the sky, or He can choose to create such perfectly balanced physical laws that everything works together.

Now, here’s one of those challenging aspects to God’s sovereign control over creation. When we see severe weather coming, we pray for God to protect us. But then, when we see a city like Greenfield destroyed by a tornado, we have to wonder: if we give God credit for protecting us, does He not have a hand in where the tornado goes? Or did Greenfield deserve it?

I can’t spend any longer on this point, but I just wanted to bring up the fact that if we accept God’s Sovereign Lordship over all creation, we must accept His rule over the beauty and the destruction, over the perfectly timed summer rains and the drought.

Lord of Lords:

This includes all the kingdoms of this world and the spiritual world.

Scripture tells us God gave all authority in heaven and on earth to Jesus. In Revelation, we see Jesus described as the “King of kings and Lord of lords.” From this we can deduce that if God can give that authority away, He has the authority over every kingdom and ruler in existence.

Therefore, every political power through all of history – the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, and even America today – has been allowed to exercise such power because God allowed it. None of it was by accident, nor was it a challenge to God’s plans. It was all PART of His plans. Even our political reality in America, regardless of who is elected in November, still remains under the Sovereign Lordship of our God. This is a hard pill to swallow when things go contrary to your hopes; but Proverbs 21 tells us that God turns the hearts of kings like water in His hand.

God is never surprised when dictators arise and do evil acts. The hard reality is that God even allows these tragedies like the current happenings in Ukraine and Israel. He has the miraculous power to intervene, but His permissive will allows evil people to carry out evil schemes – and somehow He uses this evil for His good purposes, as Romans 8:28 tells us.

We see this most obviously in the fact that God allows Satan himself a level of authority on this earth. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that Satan operates as the “god of this age.” Granted, God’s sovereign rule is greater, and He contains what Satan can do.

Even though the powers of this world may not be honorable, this does not prove that these leaders have ultimate control and God has none. Even in the mess, God is still in control of every kingdom, nation, spiritual power, and world leader. All of the world’s history has “crossed God’s desk” and been allowed. Never forget that!

Lord of Your Life:

This includes every aspect of your life, your time, your treasure, your longings, and your priorities.

Let’s get REALLY honest for a moment. We all love to sing about Jesus as our Savior, but we have a bit less celebration about God as our Lord – as our Master who has authority over our lives. Compared to our delight with Jesus as Savior, we are a lot less excited about the rules and the will of God, which are described all over the pages of scripture and which we are to strive to follow.

Humans aren’t big fans of obedience. We’d rather choose our own paths and then have God bless our choices, forgive our sin, and let us keep forging our own ways. But here’s the truth: If God is in Authority, then you are either in Submission or in Rebellion!

• Have you chosen to submit your life to the ways God has taught you to live? Are you kind, generous, slow to anger, fervent in prayer, and bold in your witness to others about the Good News?
• Or is there a level of rebellion (perhaps passively) in that there are pieces of God’s will – his Lordship for your life – that you just don’t want to accept? I think that’s probably the case for all of us. That’s what sin has done to us. We want to rebel. We want to be the god in our own lives – to have our own sovereign control. But we simply do not have that authority!
• This is why it is so important for us to recognize that GOD is the Master and we are either slaves to sin, or slaves to righteousness and the will of God we are told to obey and live out.

If we accept God’s rule in our lives, we follow the path of John the Baptist, who said, “He must become greater; I must become less.”  This is very un-American, but this is the path of those who see God not as “Buddy God” but as Sovereign Master. This is not to say that a view of God as a loving Father is inaccurate, but that view must be balanced with the rest of the teaching of scripture.

In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul discusses a complaint people make against God’s sovereignty:

Romans 9:19-21 – 19One of you will say to me, “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?”  20But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same slump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

Ultimately, we live in God’s world. He is the potter and we are the clay. Too many have forgotten that and want God to fit into their framework. Instead, we must seek to understand the world as God, the Sovereign Ruler, has defined it.

Will You (Re)submit Your Life to Jesus?

Today I want every one of you to see the supreme rule and control God has over everything on earth. This includes every aspect of creation, every world power, every world leader, and even smaller groups, clans, and cults. God is the Lord of lords. Most importantly, however, I want you to ask yourself whether you have allowed Jesus to be the Lord of your life.

Some of the final words Jesus shared with His disciples were these:

Matthew 28:18-20 –18 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

All the authority, power, and sovereign control have been given to Jesus; so we are not called to bow before God, but specifically before Jesus, the King of kings. He has done everything He could to earn your allegiance. He gave His life, gave us His Spirit, and offered every spiritual blessing.

He demands your submission! You can’t remain the king of your own life; you have to bow to His sovereign rule and will for your life. If you haven’t done that before, I encourage you to do so today. I would love for you to come forward during this final song and let me pray with you. I know that’s a step of courage, but it’s a step you will never regret.

If you have submitted your life to God, I encourage you to look for ways you may be skirting His rule through passive rebellion. Ask for His merciful forgiveness, and seek to live your life in full submission to His authority.

Conclusion

We worship an all-powerful and perfectly holy God. More than that, He has the positional authority to rule over and even control every aspect of our world. He doesn’t need our approval to do whatever He wants in this world; it’s His choice. When we fail to realize that, we fail to see our own reality clearly.

The God of creation, the God of the Bible, is the Sovereign Lord and Ruler of all! Let’s give Him all the honor, praise, and glory He deserves.