God is Sovereign

Good morning! Glad each of one of you are here with us this morning. Make sure if today is your first time with us or if you haven't done so yet you fill out a connect card or scan the QR code on the back of the chair in front of you so we can stay connected with you.

Announcements:

Sunday Afternoons @ The Olivers 4th of July party!!bring food and come ready to relax and fellowship see me or Robyn after service to get our address.

Baptisms on Sunday 7/2!

Read Romans 8:28 “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

Pray

Why Exodus:

WE ARE OFFICiaLLY kicking OFF EXODUS THIS MORNING DON’T FORGET WE have a READING PLAN TO GO ALONG WITH THIS.

Revelation of God's Nature: Exodus reveals God's character and attributes through His interactions with the Israelites. It showcases God's faithfulness, compassion, justice, and power.

Spiritual Liberation and Redemption: Exodus portrays the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt as a powerful metaphor for spiritual liberation and redemption in Christ. Christians can see parallels between their own deliverance from the bondage of sin through Jesus' sacrifice and the Israelites' freedom from Egyptian oppression. Studying Exodus can deepen appreciation for the spiritual journey from slavery to freedom in Christ.

Moral and Ethical Teachings: The book of Exodus contains the Ten Commandments, which form a foundational moral code for Christians. These commandments, along with various laws and regulations in Exodus, provide ethical guidelines for believers and insight into God's desire for righteous living. Christians can study Exodus to understand how these principles relate to their own lives and the ethical teachings of Jesus and the New Testament.

Historical Context of the Old Testament: The events and themes in Exodus set the stage for subsequent books of the Old Testament. Understanding the historical context, traditions, and laws established in Exodus can provide Christians with a deeper understanding of the narratives, prophecies, and teachings found throughout the rest of the Old Testament.

Deepening Faith and Trust: The stories of Moses, the Israelites, and their encounters with God in Exodus can inspire and strengthen Christians in their faith and trust in God. The book highlights the challenges, doubts, and moments of faith exhibited by the characters, offering lessons on perseverance, obedience, and reliance on God's guidance. By studying Exodus, Christians can find encouragement and inspiration for their own spiritual journey.

Control & Fear Section:

Who in here likes to have control? Who in here try’s to grab control when you feel fearful or that everything is out of control?

Sharon Miller points out “The illusion of control is powerful. If we feel like we are in control, it doesn't matter if we actually are” . Can anyone relate to that? has there been times where you knew you didn't actually have control but the illusion of control brought you comfort?

This is what we will see today as we unpack God’s word. We will see how people become fearful, and try to take control. We will see healthy fear and unhealthy fear. And we will see how God is working through humanities messiness and brokenness as they try to control things.

It is important to rememberer God’s promises to Abraham in Genesis 15 God promised him he would become a great nation and would have offspring as numerous as the stars and that they would one day poses land to call their own as a nation.

God also warned Abraham what would happen to his descendants

Read Genesis 15:13-14 “Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be resident aliens for four hundred years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed. However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions.”

Lets go ahead and jump in!

Read Exodus 1:8-2:10

Pharoah became resentful and was fearful of the Israelites and how rapidly they were growing (fulfilling God’s promise of a growing nation).

Pharoah tried to control the Israelite and their growth. Essentially trying to thwart Gods plane three times. First through oppression/ slavery, then through killing the Hebrew boys that were being born, then eventually throw them into the Nile!

Pharaohs grasping to control had to be frustrating for him…Because he had very real power....But he didn't know who allowed him to have that power and how he was only allowed to exert so much of that power (our God is in control! We will hit on this at the end.)

Freedom, knowledge, power, and choices are all good things, given to us by God. But when we posses and overabundance of them it gives us a false sense of our own control....Pharoah

Fear makes us do crazy things…Especially fear of man... we are not called to fear man(unhealthy)…But God Himself (healthy)Jesus tells us what we must do. read Matthew 10:28 “Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Something else i want to draw our attention to is the Hebrew midwives....They were faced with a haunting choice..They had to make a choice based on someone else acting our of fear.

They had to choose between two sins....Lie to pharoah…Or kill baby boys.. Lying to Pharaoh could have costed them their lives…Killing babies could have separated them from God.

They chose to fear God not man…and were blessed with because of their obedience to God. Re—read Exodus 1:20-21

Pharaoh loses his mind but allows them to live but then moves to having every baby boy thrown into the nile! Whats crazy is the Nile which is Pharoah had intended to bring death to all the Hebrew boys. Brings life to one…who would then lead to life and freedom for an entire nation!

Pharoah plans backfire again. Not only does one of the boys not die in the river but is saved from the river by his own daughter. and is brought into his court and raised their. (got to love how God works!)

Read Exodus 2:11-24

Moses eventually grows and tries to take matters into his own hands! He kills and Egyptian for oppressing his people.

Moses is quickly overwhelmed with fear over what he had done and knowing that Pharoah would surely try to kill him. So he fled! Moses also a victim of allowing his control and fear get the best of him.... But we also know this fleeing led him to exactly to where God wanted him.

Which leads us into God’s Sovereignty

God Is Sovereign Section:

Its amazing when you step back and read scripture and see what look like horrible situation yet God is seemingly working through it all and brining about His will despite men and women trying there best to take control and thwart God’s ultimate plane of redeeming all creation and having all creation return to Him.

God knows what He is doing and we must trust Him and be obedient even when life gets hard and crazy.

God governs the entire universe and all of history.

God is described in the Bible as all-powerful and all-knowing (Psalm 147:5), outside of time (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 90:2), and responsible for the creation of everything (Genesis 1:1; John 1:1). These divine traits set the minimum boundary for God’s sovereign control in the universe, which is to say that nothing in the universe occurs without God’s permission. God has the power and knowledge to prevent anything He chooses to prevent, so anything that does happen must, at the very least, be “allowed” by God.

the Bible describes God as offering humanity choices (Deuteronomy 30:15–19), holding them personally responsible for their sins (Exodus 20:5), and being unhappy with some of their actions (Numbers 25:3).

The fact that sin exists at all proves that not all things that occur are the direct actions of God, who is holy. The reality of human volition (and human accountability) sets the maximum boundary for God’s sovereign control over the universe, which is to say there is a point at which God chooses to allow things that He does not directly cause.

The fact that God is sovereign essentially means that He has the power, wisdom, and authority to do anything He chooses within His creation.

Whether or not He actually exerts that level of control in any given circumstance is actually a completely different question. Often, the concept of divine sovereignty is oversimplified. We tend to assume that, if God is not directly, overtly, purposefully driving some event, then He is somehow not sovereign. The cartoon version of sovereignty depicts a God who must do anything that He can do, or else He is not truly sovereign. This is logically false.

If a man were to put an ant in a bowl, the “sovereignty” of the man over the ant is not in doubt.

The ant may try to crawl out, and the man may not want this to happen. But the man is not forced to crush the ant, drown it, or pick it up.

The man, for reasons of his own, may choose to let the ant crawl away, but the man is still in control.

There is a difference between allowing the ant to leave the bowl and helplessly watching as it escapes.

The cartoon version of God’s sovereignty implies that, if the man is not actively holding the ant inside the bowl, then he must be unable to keep it in there at all. The illustration of the man and the ant is at least a vague parallel to God’s sovereignty over mankind. God has the ability to do anything, to take action and intervene in any situation, but He often chooses to act indirectly or to allow certain things for reasons of His own.

His will is furthered in any case. God’s “sovereignty” means that He is absolute in authority and unrestricted in His supremacy. Everything that happens is, at the very least, the result of God’s permissive will. This holds true even if certain specific things are not what He would prefer. The right of God to allow mankind’s free choices is just as necessary for true sovereignty as His ability to enact His will, wherever and however He chooses.

Read John 14:27 ““Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.”

Questions:

1.Has there been a time in your life where you made a decision out of fear? How did that turn out? good or bad?

2.Has there been a situation in your life where on the outside it looked bad, or actually was bad, yet God worked it out for good?

3.Does knowing God is sovereign bring you comfort? or what are feelings does this knowledge bring?