Sovereignty & Responsibility

Children’s Moment

Good morning guys! I have a question for you, Have you ever thought about who made everything around us, like the mountains, the seas, and even the ground we walk on?

<wait for response>

Well, when I was a kid, I was always fascinated by nature, I would play with caterpillars, I used to even play with earthworms even though they make me squeamish now. I used to play in the dirt a lot, just fascinated by what life was crawling underneath. Let me ask another question, do you guys know who King David is?

<Wait for response> He started out as a shepherd as a young boy taking care of sheep. He also loved to play music and would play the harp and sing songs to God. Some of these songs are in our Bible and we call them the Psalms! We are familiar normally with David from the David and Goliath story, as well as being the King of Israel, but many forget he was also a musician.

One of the Psalms he wrote, Psalm 95, talks about this idea that God created everything, and has the very world in his hands: Psalm 95:1-5

Psalm 95:1–5 NIV

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Think about how if you play with legos to make a city, you get to be the one putting every block wherever you want, making buildings or roads. If you like video games like me, I used to play Simcity a lot, building cities, but before you could build the city you had to change the land the way you wanted it. My wife Olivia also would play games like this, she played a game alot called City Skylines.

When bad things would happen in the game, I would have to fix buildings, like you would with putting legos back together. This is what it is like for God in a way, except he is in charge of the whole world. This is like how it is for God in the world, he keeps the balance of nature together. He keeps our world spinning, he makes sure that the earth keeps going around the sun. He is the reason we can feel the warmth of the sun when we go play outside! These stories and examples remind us of how God is sovereign in our lives, and in our world, when things get scary, we know we are safe in the palm of God’s hands. He is our father in heaven, and he is also that spirit in our hearts, as well as that friend we call Jesus Christ who walks beside us everyday! So anytime you find yourself angry, upset, or having a hard time understanding something, remember that Christ has the world in his hands. Let us pray.

Welcome Statement

Good morning everyone, we have talked a lot about the complexity of the Bible, how to decompose those complexities, and how we need to get comfortable with living out those eternal truths, this past year I have served here at Cornerstone. A phrase that I have used a few times, “holding truths in tension”, that I’ve argued is important, like holding to the ideals of both truth and grace, as they can on the surface, appear opposed to one another, is the foundation to how we operate as Christians as we journey on the narrow path that is really easy to fall off from as this balance of tension is delicate. Our world is delicate, our bodies are fragile, our systems are fragile, we see it play out in politics, in our communities, in the brokenness in society on a daily basis. It causes people to choose black or white in terms of extremes, left or right. When the reality, of the world, in many cases, is just gray. I am starting a new sermon series today, based on a book by Adam Mabry called stop taking sides. This book, is about breaking out of the cycle of the false dichotomy of two choices when they seem contradictory. However, there are some pre-requisites I want to make clear about this series before I do it, because I know it will be a complex, and uncomfortable series of 8-9 sermons on different truths in the bible that hold each-other in tension but are truths nonetheless. We each personally have preferences on which of these we find ourselves relying on more, or liking more. I will not argue a case for or against any of them, because they are truths the Bible espouses. Different churches over the ages have emphasized these truths to various degrees and configurations, and what I am hoping is that through this process, we find ourselves humbled by the complexity and mystery of our God, without losing the core tenets of our faith.

So what is this not going to be about? This book makes the following points: - I am not going to argue all cases are gray, there are cases of paramount truth, or ultimate truth, such as, Christ is the way, the truth, the light, and the only way to the Father in heaven, and no other way, we know this. This is a black and white truth that we adhere to. I am not going to deconstruct central tenets I personally believe, that is just unreasonable. - I am not arguing for pluralism or balance, where you say all things are true at once. For example, Paul didn’t say paganism was true while also espousing the truth of Jesus Christ.

I am not arguing about a moderate approach of taking the best of both sides in every case of ideology and then making your own way that makes you comfortable, nor am I saying to reframe God’s truth in a way to make you able to live with it.

What is this about then? It is simple, to show, some of the truths we see in the Bible, some of which we find ourselves forgetting, that we need to hold in tension, as we espouse others. For example, if we discipline others, we need to do it in love. If we are to love others, we need to be dilligent/disciplined in our love, and so forth. If we are to teach grace, we must teach the truth about it, and not abuse it, if we are going to teach about the truth, we must be bold, but also graceful, that is the tension. Some of these do become cases of a balancing act, but what I am saying is, it is not about us taking every case of argumentation, and taking the best of both worlds and picking and choosing, but accepting these two truths overlap each other and exist at the same time.

I hope these pick up and make more sense as we go along, to start, we must start at the beginning, at the nature of man and the nature of God. It’s quite simple, especially in a Wesleyan perspective. We believe that Christ is sovereign, through his prevenient grace that he offers us, melts our hearts so we can make a choice out of free will to accept or deny him. This is a two-fold declaration. That God is sovereign in our lives and influencing our faith in some fashion through grace and sanctification, but that we also have an active part of choosing through free-will. We receive free gifts of grace to help us upon the journey, but somehow, Christ is still sovereign over our journey in some way!

There are different takes on the extremes of how this can be. The Arminian position argues you can lose your faith, etc, there’s the argument of the perseverance of the saints from Lutherans and Calvinists who emphasize God’s sovereignty in faith, but that’s not really what I’m trying to get at today. I’m more interested in this not from a systematic theology perspective, but from how scripture directly explores this issue. The book addresses these systematic problems some, if you’re interested more in that language, but it doesn’t get super deep. We are first going to explore God’s sovereignty through scripture, then humanity’s free will, and then explore cases where they collide or intersect to see how that works. Proverbs 16:9–11

Proverbs 16:9–11 NRSV

The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps. Inspired decisions are on the lips of a king; his mouth does not sin in judgment. Honest balances and scales are the Lord’s; all the weights in the bag are his work.

Ephesians 2:1–10 NRSV

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

John 15:1–3 NRSV

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.

John 15:15–17 (NRSV)

John 15:12–20 NRSV

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

Responsibility

Romans 2:12–16 NRSV

All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.

Acts 13:44–52 (NRSV)

The next sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy; and blaspheming, they contradicted what was spoken by Paul. Then both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,

‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles,

so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”

When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers. Thus the word of the Lord spread throughout the region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, and stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their region. So they shook the dust off their feet in protest against them, and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

John 6:60–71 (NRSV)

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”

Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.

Closing Statement

As you witnessed, we have a direct responsibility in our faith, and a direct responsibility to our sin, but GOD is also sovereign over our faith, and also calls people to faith. These two truths we find them to be contradictory, but it’s clear in scripture we see people ordained to be prophets, and God planned Christ to be the savior from the beginning. A God living outside of the construct of space and time, being capable of knowing all future events, without affecting our free will, while a mind-bender of a though experiment, is not a logical contradiction. He is a higher form of being than us, he is the ultimate thing, as he said I AM WHO I AM, YHWH. That is the declaration of simplicity but both complexity in the same sentence. So much is said with such a basic name.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, Thank you for reminding us when we fall short on our agency and responsibility, you are there to pick us up through your grace, you are there to keep us, love us, hold us, mend us, and clean us of all sin. Help us to carry this truth, to give up our egos, and wills, surrender our will, FREELY to you, as you have called us to do, let you have your way with us lord, we know these truths work in harmony, despite our desire for self-reliance, we really, rely on you, for salvation. So let us, surrender it all at the alter, and be responsible in our faith, for your glory. Amen.

Doxology / Benediction / Closing

As you go out this week, think about this complicated balance. Reflect on how Christ is sovereign in your life, but also calls you to a life of piety and action, a life of working out your faith, of wrestling out your faith and learning how to love as he loves. Think about how sanctification, while it is something that God does, it is also strangely a process we find ourselves freely participating in by our surrenderence to his will. While God is sovereign, and he first called us, we had to make the choice to accept his call, these both are true. But we couldn’t have even attempted to accept the call without his grace in the first place.

May you Have a Blessed Sunday, and rest of your Week! Amen!